


How We've Always Been

by gala_apples



Category: Glee, Hockey RPF
Genre: Binge Drinking, Casual Sex, Closeted Character, Coming Out, Crossover, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Open Relationships, Premature Ejaculation, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-02
Updated: 2013-10-02
Packaged: 2017-12-28 05:19:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 37,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/988159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gala_apples/pseuds/gala_apples
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Patrick sings Ke$ha, Puck and Finn figure out who he’s singing to, while Jonny doesn’t hear a word. Lucky for Patrick they have no interest in outing him, only spicing up their sex lives.</p><p>The second time Patrick sings Ke$ha, Jonny punches him in the face. It’s possible he deserves it, but he’ll never admit that out loud.</p><p>The third time Patrick sings Ke$ha he gets his happily ever after. Well, the high school version of, at least. An adult happily ever after would be a boyfriend and his name engraved on the Stanley Cup.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How We've Always Been

**Author's Note:**

> Because this is a crossover, there was a little bit of handwaving of canons to make it mesh. More specifically:
> 
> -If you're coming at this from a Glee angle, this fic runs from Sue Sylvester Shuffle to Original Song (2x11-2x16). I love Lauren but the Lauren/Puck storyline doesn't work here. Similarly, Finn/Quinn does not happen. I used some canonical dialogue, but hopefully not enough to make it boring.
> 
> -If you're coming at this from a Hockey angle, a bunch of the Chicago Blackhawks are high schoolers in Lima, Ohio with no explanations and blatant age fuckery. Also, even though I know better, in this universe hockey players are recruited from college, never high school.
> 
> This was written for the Hockey Big Bang, solely because I was mentioned on Twitter that I could easily picture the Ke$ha song I was listening to being sung by Kaner. One of my twitter friends is our lovely mod, who told me I could sign up for HBB, even though the sign-up period had actually closed. Thanks for being awesome!
> 
> Pikasafire was my artist, and her fantastic mix can be found [here](). (link to be added) Her artwork is directly below.

[ ](http://photobucket.com/)

Patrick tosses down his Gameboy and scrambles for his English book as his bedroom door opens. His character is definitely dying a horrible death as the device lays abandoned, but it’s basically the least of his worries. He can always beat the level again, but getting in shit tonight would really fuck over his weekend plans.

The hours between getting home from either school, practices, or lessons are supposed to be for homework. It’s a Kane family law, practically. Playing Donkey Kong isn’t exactly reading the chapters he said he had to. If his mom is the person on the other side of the door he’ll be getting a lecture, at the very least, and every five or so rants combo to a punishment. It’s not a precise count, but the last grounding was long enough ago that Patrick’s pretty sure he’s due for one. On the other hand, it might be one of his sisters. In that case a well thought out bribe would need to be forked over so he’s not ratted out. Unless the girl in question is pissed off at him. If she’s mad not even a million bucks and Robert Pattinson's phone number would be a sufficient bribe.

It’s Jackie. Not that it matters. He’s seated a bit awkwardly; thanks to the scoot up the bed at least half the blanket is wrinkled under his ass, but he’s a swift fucker and he’s got Where The Red Fern Grows in hand. As an added bonus, his Gameboy is dropped down between the side of the bed and the wall. Good thing too, Jackie likes to mock the shit out of him for liking old school 8-bit games over the pretty DS shit.

“Jonny’s outside.”

“What, already?” Patrick twists to look at his alarm clock, bit there’s really no point. No matter what time it is, he’s gotta be outside, like _now_.

Jackie shrugs. “You know him. If you’re on time, you’re late.”

Patrick takes the stairs two at a time. He’s gotta get his outdoor clothes on, and either make a snack or beg money out of his dad, and find the least grimy seating pad, and fuck, he really should have done all of this shit _before_ he went to his room to pretend to do homework.

Erica must feel guilty for something because she meets him at the end of the hallway with a paper bag that Patrick can tell by smell is full of PB&J sandwiches. He’ll get to the bottom of the ‘favour’ later. Right now he needs to get the hell out, before Jonny takes off without him. Patrick snatches the bag and continues into the mudroom. She follows.

“Jonny’s here,” she says.

“Yeah, thanks.” 

He jams his feet into his sneakers. There hasn’t been much snow this year, he’ll probably be fine. It’s cold enough though that Patrick wants a jacket and scarf. He rifles through the mudroom closet for something that doesn’t make him look like a Harry Potter fangirl. How the fuck do they own seven different house colours scarves? Their family only has six members, and Patrick doubts his dad has ever read the series to claim Ravenclaw.

Fuck it. That task’s not gonna happen. Time to move on. Patrick kicks the neat stack of seating pads in the corner so they scatter across the floor as he grabs for his jacket. Three of them have beer stains and one has a wine red stain, which, what the hell? Who drinks wine at an outdoor sporting event? Whatever, the green beer one feels dry when he picks it up.

One arm struggling with an inside out sleeve, it hits Patrick that he doesn’t even know how many of his sisters he’s waiting for. As a reminder to their asses in gear, he shouts “Jonny’s here!”

“I just told you that,” comes from two different directions.

“Who’s coming?” Silence. “Who’s coming to the game?” he tries again. It’s the Championship game, at least one of them should be hitching a ride with Jonny before hooking up with her own friends. 

Patrick jams the seat pad between his arm and ribs and rushes back down the hall. Erica and Jessica are both on the couch, Erica eating her own sandwich. Jackie’s unplugging cords, switching the tv connection from PS3 to Wii. Either they only had a little bit of homework, or they’re gambling on Mom and Dad not asking what they’ve accomplished. Whatever it is, it’s not his problem. He’ll be far the fuck away from the dinner table, with Jonny and a few hundred other people with strong opinions about sports. 

He’ll try one last time, because he’s a great older brother like that. “We need to go the fuck now, before Jonny kicks my ass. Like it’s my fault he didn’t text me when he was five minutes away.”

Jessica snorts. “Seriously? You’re not on the team, our boyfriends aren’t on the team, we have no friends on the team.”

“Not to mention who wants to sit outside in the first week of February?”

“Fine, whatever. You guys are pussies.”

“Holy shit, we have pussies? Never would have guessed!” Jackie slaps her cheeks Home Alone style, then punches him in the arm.

“Fine. Whatever. See you later.”

Patrick makes it about three steps out the front door before a gust of winter wind hits him. He thinks about sitting in that sort of weather for three hours with all of his extremities uncovered, then rushes back to the mudroom. Fuck it. He can look like a fangirl. Gryffindor is red and gold, McKinley sports are red and black. Close enough.

“Looks like it’s just us, bro.” Patrick says as he climbs into the passenger seat of Jonny’s car. Stupid rich asshole, getting his own car when he’s seventeen. At least there’s no Tazer vanity plate. Patrick would probably have to puke if there was.

“Better off. We’re gonna watch the game, not talk about how dreamy Azimio is.”

Patrick smirks, as required. He can’t say Azimio’s not his type, he likes skinny and monotone better. Jonny doesn’t want to hear that shit.

They’re not the first people in the stands. It’s a football town, after all. Patrick doesn’t much raise his head as the stands fill over the next forty five minutes. Given the choice between seeing parents and friends settle and start drinking thermoses, and talking to his friends, it’s a done deal. McKinley’s wifi is insanely hackable, the password is actually Figgins123. Not everyone is online, but it only takes a few to have constant flashes of orange keeping him busy. 

Patrick knows Jonny thinks online friends are creepy. He plays the ‘what if he’s a seventy year old pedophile serial killer’ card at least once a month. As far as Patrick’s concerned, he doesn’t care if Phil is a seventy year old pedophile serial killer. He’s funny as balls and gives good advice, and that’s what matters.

It’s a few minutes before the game is due to start when Jonny elbows him. Patrick looks up to see three uniforms the size of girls step onto the field with a larger, normal sized football player. A bunch of the regular football players aren’t in uniform. He’s got no idea what they’re talking about, but it’s only a minute later that all the undressed players walk off, leaving only a few normal players, and a bunch of girls.

“Is that the new outfit for a thing Sylvester’s doing?” Patrick asks. Jonny would know. His freshie brother is dating a Cheerio.

“No, man. But that’s definitely girls, and the only guys out there are Glee club guys, so 8 and 1 and 71 are probably Glee girls. And 79’s definitely Lauren Zizes.”

“She’s Glee too.” Not that it counts, from a practical standpoint. As open target as Glee is for mockery, not a single teenager in McKinley would dare bring her into it. Patrick would bet a hundred bucks she’s never been slushied.

Jonny shakes his head. “She’s not dedicated. She’s in it because she got bribed.”

In Patrick’s mind, that’s reason enough. His entire home life is a balance of bribes and passive aggressive revenge. Two months ago he got new headphones for not complaining about professional studio family photos. Getting high quality music in his eardrums doesn’t mean his presence in the picture is any less real than Jessica’s, who complained non-stop. But Jonny basically sweats dedication from every pore. From him that statement is hardcore condemnation, and Patrick doesn’t care enough about Zizes to argue.

The game’s brutal. His sisters would kick his ass for saying that’s why girls shouldn’t play football, but aside from Zizes, who surprises no one in her bloodthirstiness, that’s why girls shouldn’t play. They’re not even trying. They’re literally dropping down onto the frosty grass as soon as the play starts. It is fucking painful to watch. At one point Patrick shoves his face into Jonny’s armpit and tells him to tell him when it’s over. 

And then, two touchdowns and a field goal later, 8 does something. She picks the ball up after a fumble and starts sprinting down the field. She’s fast as shit, and none of the Bearcats are paying attention to her, since she’s done nothing all night. Patrick would laugh, except he’s on the edge of his fucking seat, willing her to score the Titans’ first touchdown. He thinks she’s gonna make it. It seems really fucking plausible, and without looking away from the field Patrick starts punching Jonny in the side. Shit, there’s still three minutes on the clock, and the full second half. If 8 makes this happen, then the Titans could still win!

Then some Spencerville asswipe tackles her. It’s not a dirty hit, not really. It’s just the double punch of all hope being stolen away and 8 being his sister’s size that gets Patrick in the gut.

Patrick can’t help himself. He starts the chant, _asswipe_ , in a sing-song tone. Aaaass-wiiiipe, aaaass-wipe, aaaaaass-wiiiiipe. It spreads nearly halfway through the crowd before 8 stands and the chant is abandoned for cheering her off the field. Jonny’s side-eying him, but whatever. He’s been way more obnoxious for way less reason in the past.

The rest of the first half is miserable. As the clock ticks down Patrick twists in Jonny’s direction. “We got a good Cheerios routine coming up?” After all, Jonny’s got an in, and he needs to pretend to care.

“No. Sylvester is enraged, again, and switched their Regional competition just to make the Unholy Trinity decide where they wanna be.”

Patrick winces. To him it wouldn’t be a hard choice. Anything vs hockey, hockey wins. Except maybe his family, if they super _super_ needed him. Like an appendix close to bursting or something. But it might be a hard choice for those three, so it sucks that their coach is so cruel. He can’t see Coach Lloyd fucking over anyone the hockey team on purpose. It also sucks that the intermission will probably just be the band.

Intermission is definitely not just the band. It’s the band and Glee and the football players and it’s freakin’ awesome. They’re doing this mash up of Thriller and Heads Will Roll, and they’re all dressed like zombies. Patrick side-checks Jonny. “Look at that!”

“I am.”

“So fuckin’ boss.”

“Yeah,” he answers. It’s not Jonny’s normal monotone that Patrick’s gotten pretty pro at parsing for actual meaning. It’s legit monotone, like Jonny doesn’t give a shit that there are thirty zombies dancing and moaning the shit out of the football field.

Patrick leans into Jonny a bit more and shouts into his ear. “So fuckin’ boss!” If he’s gotta have enough enthusiasm for the both of them, so fucking be it.

Patrick doesn’t know the inner workings of what happens after that. Maybe the girls decide they belong in the arts - and yeah, he can practically hear his sisters yelling at him for being sexist. Or maybe the girls’ costumes take longer to get out of, and the team didn’t have that much time to wait. Or maybe the football players stopped having a hissy fit. Or maybe this was the plan all along. 

Whatever it is, the original team starts playing the third quarter. Still in freakin’ costume, gore splattered white pants and ripped up jerseys and full make up. Jonny says something about ‘not very professional’, but he’s proven wrong the very first play when the Titans take possession. The second play the Titans get a touchdown. It’s possible Patrick blows a vessel screaming, but it’s fine. If he’s dripping blood somewhere that just means he matches the team.

There’s twelve seconds left in the last quarter when Patrick reaches into his bag and crams a full sandwich into his mouth. If he doesn’t he’s going to end up gnawing off his own hand from sheer tension. Fuck, they’re so close. The Titans are only down by three points. There’s gotta be a way.

Coach Bieste calls a time out, and Patrick moans through the peanut butter. He can’t handle this, and Jonny’s not doing much better. It’s the worst thing about watching a sport instead of playing it. You can’t get lost in it, knowing you’re doing the best you can. You can only hope that a whole bunch of other fuckers are gonna do the best they can.

Time out ends, and they get into line. All the Bearcats have to do is run down the clock, and this is actively killing Patrick. Then the Titans start saying something. Patrick can’t make it out at first, but then the Glee girls on the sideline like the funkiest looking cheerleaders in the world start saying it too, and it sounds like-

Patrick spits out his sandwich, knowing he’ll never swallow the wad in time. The bread lands wetly on his Converse, he can feel it. But he doesn’t give two shits because he’s too busy standing and screaming “brains!” at the top of his lungs. Everyone is, Beiste and her assistant, the few players on the bench, everyone in the stands from Lima. Even Jonny’s getting into it.

The Bearcats fumble the snap. 5 picks it up and runs it into the end zone, which is otherwise known as a fucking touchdown, and a touchdown is six fucking points and God, Patrick thought he was losing his shit a minute ago. That’s nothing compared to now. He throws both arms around Jonny and shouts wordlessly, his noise getting lost on a crowd of hundreds doing the exact same thing. Just because the Titans won against Spencerville doesn’t mean the Cutters will win against the Spencerville hockey team, but for three minutes Patrick’s riding an intramural high.

Oh fuck, he is giving Jackie and Jessica and Erica _so much shit_ for missing this.

***

Patrick thinks about it all Friday night and he’s sure. He thinks about it all weekend, and he’s sure. And then he goes to school on Monday and thinks about it, and he’s still fucking sure. So he goes to the rink after last period, plan firmly built in his head. There’s no practice, but about half the team is there anyway. And Coach, of course, comfortable like a phoenix in flames in the penalty box, papers scattered in front of him. Coach Lloyd teaches Ancient Civilizations at McKinley because every coach doubles up, exceptions being Bieste and Sylvester, the real moneymakers. The great thing about Coach is that he’s willing to mark essays and do other fiddly adult shit while sitting in the box, marginally supervising, so they can have ice time if they want. Patrick appreciates the shit out of it, since he pretty much always wants.

The Cutters are unique in their position. Lots of McKinley teams use the field outside. Almost every team uses the gymnasium. Even the swimming pool is shared by the synchronized team, the lappers and the divers. But the rink is only used by the hockey team. It’s _theirs_.

Patrick’s not surprised by the guys he sees. From Jonny to Moon to Sharpy to Rick the Stick it’s all guys who really love it, who want a career of this sport. Good. Hopefully that’ll make his plan settle easier. Sometimes he thinks Jonny would be willing to sell his own grandmother for a path to the NHL. His idea really isn’t much in comparison.

“Hey Coach,” he says on his way past, once he’s got his gear on. Patrick will thank him at the end of the year, like he did as a freshman and a sophomore. Until then he’ll show appreciation through a basically responsible attitude, shit like leaving his backpack with everyone elses, not where someone will trip and die. Coach is the kind to want actions over words anyway.

“Hey Kaner,” he drawls back.

Patrick skates a few laps, fast and hard, making sure he doesn’t get in anyone’s way. It’s a thing he has to do to get back in himself. It’s kinda like a mermaid getting back into the water. Like yeah, you can survive, all fucked up legs and no voice, but you know where you really belong.

Only when Patrick’s feeling back to himself does he clap his hands to get everyone’s attention. He’s not wearing gloves, so the sound is pretty sharp. “Guys. Huddle up for a sec. I’ve got an idea.”

One and all, they skate to him, gliding to a stop in a natural semi-circle. Patrick’s no Captain, he knows he never will be. Not considering he and Jonny are graduating the same year, and even if Tazer died some horrible death, Rick the Stick’s still got the A. But the guys that spend their free time in the rink- it’s kind of like an alliance. A loose, not so secret club. Everyone here will listen to him, precisely because he’s here when he could be off with a girlfriend, or playing video games.

That’s not to say he won’t get some level of crap. McDougall’s got his arms as crossed as they can be with his big goalie pads. “If the idea’s you saying we should duct tape me to the net again I’m gonna board you.”

“Every time I say it you deserve it.” Patrick points out, quite rightly, a little heatedly. If the Cutters did pull the Goldberg Mighty Ducks thing, the fucker would deserve every minute.

“Bullshit!”

He’s more than a little heated now. If Mackie can shout, so can he. “Stop leaving the fucking crease you’re not the fucking forward McDougall!”

Mackie looks like he’s about to crack him in the face. Patrick holds his ground. Getting hit every once in awhile is a good thing. Keeps your pain threshold from dipping too pathetically low. What really matters is everyone on the team knows he’s right. 

“Cool your tits, man.”

As far as a helpful lecture from the Assistant Captain goes, it’s not much. Rick didn’t even tack on a name to direct the comment towards. But it’s enough to remind Patrick that getting mad at Mackie’s stupid need to fill every position at once isn’t what he’s got everyone huddled for. 

“It’s nothing to do with that.”

“What, then?”

Patrick lays it out for them. “We need to start Slushieing the Glee club.”

“Right on.”

“Yeah, fuck the Titans. Their season is done, their time is over.”

As the chorus of yeses grows stronger Patrick lets himself smile. Maybe Phase One won’t be as hard to arrange as he thought.

Then Moon jockeys to be heard. “Why though, exactly? Like I’m not saying I’m not gonna, don’t get me wrong. But when we dumpster the AV club we’ve usually got a reason.”

Huh. They do? Patrick wouldn’t really know. Like eight times out of ten he’s not with the Cutters when they do things. Erica and Jackie are both at McKinley and they basically rip his guts out and then sprinkle the open wound with guilt if/when they find out he’s done the hazing thing. 

“We gotta make it look like we hate Glee.”

Vega rolls his eyes. “I don’t give a shit one way or the other.”

“Yeah, fine. But the Titans and Glee hate the shit out of each other, right? Their Coaches saw it and made them work together just in time for the Titans actually win their conference because of the help Glee gave them.”

Sharpy looks at him like he’s speaking in tongues. “And by help you mean the dancing and singing thing?”

“The dancing and singing _zombie_ thing,” he clarifies.

“Hell no.”

“Fuck off man.”

The string of no’s is even louder than the yeses of a minute ago. Every time Patrick tries to talk over them they start up again. Finally he just turns and skates off.

“Awww come on. Don’t run away.”

“Fuck you. I am not.”

“You’re skating away. Actively.”

Patrick snarls. That doesn’t mean he’s running away, pouting like some asshole. That means he’s being pro-the-fuck-active about his decisions. “Yeah, well, I’m gonna go try out for Glee.”

Most of the guys just heckle him. Jonny chases after him. Even puts a hand on Patrick’s shoulder to keep him from moving before he can curve around him for a face to face. “No you’re not.”

“Yeah I am.”

“No. You’re not.”

Patrick can cross his arms, unlike Mackie. He does, so he doesn’t shove his best friend turned putz out of his grill. “Really fucking am.”

“It’s not good for the team.”

Patrick is gonna logically explain that joining Glee has nothing to do with the Cutters, it’s not like he’s joining five sports teams at once, singing and a little dancing won’t risk his body for hockey. He’ll explain that there’s nothing to worry about, if there was ever a competition and a game at the same time Patrick’s priorities wouldn’t even be a question. Or maybe he’ll explain that hive-mind teams are for the NHL, maybe the AHL, but he doesn’t have to do everything the Cutters want and need because they’re all a bunch of douchey asshats, and at least half of them have skipped practice a few times. 

Instead of any of that, what comes out is “fuck off, Captain Tazer.”

Jonny frowns. It’s a nickname they mostly use during games. It’s probably sacrilegious of Patrick to be using it in this tone, but whatever. If Jonny thinks he can control his entire life through his hockey, then he deserves being Tazer.

“Patrick-”

And that’s fucked up too, because Patrick is Kaner to everyone that doesn’t share his blood, and Jonny most of all. So, what, he’s genuinely upset about the Glee thing, and is using ‘team’ so he doesn’t have to say ‘me’? Well, Patrick is very much not down with that. 

“No. I’m going, because fuck this, and I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“I give you rides, asshole.”

“I have fucking feet, fucking asshole!” Patrick returns. It’s not his loudest decibel, but it’s apparently enough to drive Jonny away. Fine. Whatever. He can skate drills with Rick and Moon until he fucking passes out.

Patrick’s not in full uniform, not for an after school open skate. Once he’s got his helmet off and the skate guards on his skates, all he’s got left is his jersey and he can hardly take that off. He wore it to school today, just like he wore it last week. All sports guys wear their shirts or their jackets routinely. It’s a unity thing.

With his school backpack slung over his shoulders and his hockey backpack dangling from his hand Patrick crosses the school using the quickest route he can think of. He stops at the choir room, hovering just at the doorway. No one’s actually singing anything. They’re all just looking at pieces of paper. But that’s good, probably. Means he’s not interrupting when he walks further in.

“I want in.”

The wheelchair kid reacts first. “Hey, no Slushies in the choir room!”

“I certainly won’t allow it,” their coach adds.

Patrick gets the suspicion. He really does. But they’re missing the obvious. “In what hand am I holding a Slushie? The hand that’s carrying ten pounds of gear, or the hand that’s scratching my ass?”

“Why are you here?” Quinn Fabray asks. Like he didn’t just explain himself.

“I want in.”

“To what?” the black girl says. All twelve of them look bewildered.

“I’ve had multiple concussions, how are you the stupid ones?” As soon as he says it he can practically feel Jonny smacking him. You don’t chirp on the first day, it makes for bad introductions. The proof of the statement are the multiple hostile glares. “Let’s try this again. I’m Kaner. I wanna be in your Glee club thing.”

Evans bursts out “you play hockey!”

“Yeah, right wing. So what?”

“So puckheads are even worse than the football team,” Chang replies.

“How do you know? We’ve never talked.”

“You Slushied everyone last week.”

Patrick didn’t. He totally wasn’t there, he hasn’t Slushied anyone since just after coming back from Christmas break. Three weeks, at least. But arguing that would get things way off track, easier to just agree with the guy. “Yeah. But we could Slushie the basketball team together tomorrow.”

“What?” 

Patrick doesn’t know which one of them said it. They all look pretty stunned. He answers them, not making eye contact with anyone in particular. “Tomorrow we’ll all throw in a few bucks for a baker’s dozen and chuck it at whoever.”

“It doesn’t work like that.”

“Why not? They chirp you, you chirp them, right?”

“He did say he’s been concussed,” the Asian girl says to Chang. Patrick would guess they’re dating, from the way their thighs touch.

“Guys!” the coach shouts, then tacks on “Kaner,” like he’s not sure he’s actually saying it. “New Directions accepts the people that want to join it. Kaner, show us what you’ve got.”

Huh. A drill. He probably should have seen that coming. “Okay, cool.”

He stands there quiet for a second, thinking about the five thousand plus songs on his iPod. It’s just common sense that some of his favourite shit to listen to wouldn’t make for a good try out; Glee isn’t about rapping, and some of his prominent artists aren’t really P.C.. Even once Patrick’s got one picked he hesitates for a second. There’s no hockey stick to handle, no microphone stand to grip. There’s nothing to do with his body. That’s pretty much the opposite of any other tryout Patrick’s ever had. It’s weird, but whatever. He can do this.

It’s not until Patrick’s done singing that he realises he’s been clutching onto his cross hard enough for the pattern to be embedded in his hand. Sandsie the alternate goalie is a bitter atheist, so Patrick’s heard his share of anti-church speak. Nobody here gives him shit for it though. Either no one knows what he’d clutched, no one cares, or they’re all cowed by Quinn, who, teen pregnancy or not, is still the charter member of The God Squad, because no one says as much as a word.

About half of the current members applaud. Pretty good numbers, Patrick thinks, considering all the guys in the room are on the Titans, which means they instinctively hate him. The coach waits for them to settle before asking “what was that?” 

Patrick’s known this coach for all of five minutes, but he’s decent at reading people, picking up minute body language and half changes in tone. He has to be, considering his monotone best friend. If Patrick had to bet he’d say this coach is interested in his skills.

“Uh, a mash up of The Police’s Message In A Bottle, and a Kanye West cover of The Fray’s Heartless? And the song features Black Eyed Peas Bom Boom Pow, but it’s basically a backup vocal, and I only have the one voice, right? It’s called, uh, Heartless In A Bottle, I think. Dunno, it’s just track four on my Kanye mashups playlist. I could check my iPod if you want.”

Puckerman’s been sneering at him since he walked into the room. Patrick’s not very surprised that when he opens his mouth, shit pours out. “A mash-up? Shit, you should have just sung a Journey song if you really wanted to suck Schue’s dick.”

Coach Schue is so outraged Patrick could almost laugh. His face is as pink as his ugly paisley tie. “Puck! That’s way out of line!”

“He’s part of the freakin’ hockey team and you’re about to let him in!”

“And who were to you half this room when you joined?”

There is definitely a story in those words, because they turn Puckerman from enraged to sullen in about a second flat. “Whatever. This is bullshit.”

“Puck, one more and you’re going to Figgins.”

“Fine!”

Patrick guesses tattling to the principal is Glee’s version of the penalty box. Seems kinda excessive though. When Patrick gets too aggressive he sits out two minutes, he doesn’t get his parents involved.

“Welcome Kaner. Find a seat. We’ve got Regionals coming up, and we’re trying different songs out.”

Patrick holds off sitting for a second. Maybe upright his opinion will mean more. There’s gotta be a reason Captain Tazer never sits down to give a speech. “Do the one you did Friday.”

“The Thriller/Heads Will Roll mashup?”

“Duh. That shit was pro.”

“Kaner, I don’t know what your Coach allows, but here we watch our language.”

It’s not so much that Coach doesn’t care, it’s that he can’t really hear people muttering into their mouthpieces from the bench. This room is echoy. It’s probably a singing thing, like when your voice bounces off the tile in the shower.

“Seriously though, you were at a football game?”

“Yeah. Mad props to whoever was eight.”

The Asian girl smiles. “That was me. I’m Tina.”

“Well, good job, Tina. That Bearcat checked you hard.” He’d say more, but getting bitched at twice in two minutes for swearing would suck.

“Football, not hockey. She got tackled.” Evans is clearly not a friend yet. Whatever, there are Cutters he’s known three years who still aren’t his friends. It won’t kill him to not be universally loved.

Patrick finally makes a move to sit down. There are more chairs than people, so he’s got a few options. Patrick finds himself sitting beside Puck and muttering “if I wanted to suck your coach’s dick he’d know.”

It’s the first time he’s said anything to anybody, but the look on Puck’s face is worth it. Really, what does it matter? Patrick wouldn’t say anything to anyone that knows him, that would be the _real_ definition of bad for the team, but Puck probably thinks he’s joking. And even if he doesn’t, so what? A football player talking smack about a hockey player? No one would even bother to pass it on to ben Israel, that little shit stirring gossipy bastard.

“Whatever,” Puck mutters back finally, way too late to save face.

“Yeah. Whatever,” Patrick replies, a bit of a smirk coming on. Screw Tazer, he can chirp a little on the first day.

***

Even though Patrick had to get a ride to school from his dad, along with Jackie and Erica, he’s completely unsurprised that he and Jonny are eating lunch together. It’s the way they fight; almost functionally. They can still do other things as they’re fighting. Patrick is proud of the skill, figures it’ll be important for his career. If he gets drafted to the Canucks for example, he’ll probably spend every minute he’s not on ice wanting to strangle his teammates.

It also doesn’t surprise him that Jonny brings it up. “How do we get past this?”

Patrick considers for a second making a joke about bag lunching it if McKinley’s food continues to be gross, but there’s no point. There’s a reason they’re sitting separately from the rest of the Cutters. This conversation is gonna happen, and all that will happen if he tries to get around it is Jonny kicking him under the table.

“You asking like my friend who doesn’t get my new hobby, or my Captain that’s trying to control my whole life?”

Jonny grimaces. “I just don’t think it’s as important as hockey.”

“I’ve got two answers for that. I’m gonna say them both, because you need to hear them both.” Patrick takes a swig of lemon lime Gatorade then continues. “One; nothing is as important as hockey. Two; it doesn’t matter what you think. I’m gonna do it, stay joined. So you might as well stop being a dicksmack about it.”

“Screw you, I’m not a dicksmack. I’m concerned.”

“Your concern is making you a dicksmack. Look,” Patrick says with all the ease of an FBI negotiator. “I’ll compromise. If this somehow goes terribly wrong, like if the punishment for not getting first place in their competition is leg amputation, or if the Penguins see the comp on Youtube and decide they can’t sign me and take away my chance at becoming a pop sensation, you can say I told you so. Until then stop with the dicksmackery.”

“Whatever, Pittsburgh won’t call anyway. You’ll end up on the Atlanta Thrashers.”

“Oh, that’s low. And fuck you too, you’ll be on the Sabres.”

Just like that, they’re fine again. Patrick’s even considering suggesting they spend the second half the lunch period with the rest of the team. That’s when Rachel Berry comes striding up in another hideous animal sweater-plain skirt-leg warmers combo. Patrick considers himself pretty much the opposite of the gay stereotype, but he’d totally do a makeover on her, make her less awful. He can manage aesthetically hot, even if it’ll do nothing for his dick.

She’s not carrying a tray or anything else, which leaves her free to slam both palms down on their table. Patrick only sees things rattle, the noises are drowned out by Rachel demanding “where were you this morning?”

“Uh. In bed?” Except for the brief time in which he was in the shower jerking off over Jack Sparrow. The fantasy is what Patrick classifies as an oldie but a goodie. But Rachel probably doesn’t want to know that, two gay dads or not, and Jonny definitely doesn’t.

Patrick has about a second to wonder why that answer enrages Rachel even more before she bursts out “we had practice!”

“What, in the morning?” Who does that? The NHL and AHL, yeah, and probably the singing equivalent, like morning mic-testing during Warped Tour. This is high school though, nothing professional. Patrick hasn’t had one morning practice with Coach Lloyd in his three years on the team.

Rachel crosses her arms tightly under her chest and her face does a corresponding thing. Patrick recognises that look, it’s the expression of a know-it-all who’s about to be forced to admit they’re wrong. He lifts the bottle of Gatorade to his mouth so he can hide his smirk when she finally says the words. He’s been on the team for less than twenty four hours, it’s probably best to leave chirping the Captain for a bit. Or never, considering how uppity she is. 

“Okay, so maybe it wasn’t official, but everyone in New Directions was there, barring you, and there was glorious song.”

Patrick shakes his head. “That doesn’t work for me. I’ve got hockey.”

“Your season isn’t over yet?”

“I’ve got hockey,” he repeats. Saying that hockey’s _never_ over puts him a little too close to her obsession level for his comfort.

“Okay, fine. Mr Schue and Finn and I will work it out.” So she’s a co-captain then. Hudson didn’t seem overly authoritative yesterday, but maybe it’s different once everyone’s dancing and singing instead of just dividing a song into harmonies and solos.

Jonny doesn’t wait until Rachel’s out of earshot to say ‘she’s crazy’, because he’s a rude shit. And completely a kettle calling the pot black, to boot.

“You are literally exactly as crazy about your thing. You’ve just got different things.”

***

“You gonna hang out with us now?”

The question comes from about ass level so Patrick knows before he turns around that it’s Artie, even though he can’t hear the voice specifically. His Rock Your Body playlist at 70% volume is the cause of that. He’s only got time for one or two songs before he has to go change, just enough to pump him up. Screw it though. Patrick tugs on the white cords until both buds pop out of his ears. Might as well full pay attention to the guy for a minute before he fucks off to more important matters. 

“No, but what’s it matter,” he jokes. “You and Mike already did that badass Michael Jackson duet. What could beat that?” 

Patrick had to miss the last ten minutes of lunch to see it, but the performance was worth skipping his orange. Mike’s a mad-good dancer, and Artie’s got a good voice. Between them they had Pretty Young Things down solid. Their girlfriends friggin loved it. It’s not like Patrick didn’t eat the fruit between fourth and fifth period anyway. Tazer would be proud of him, energy loading for practice in his free moments.

Artie smiles at the compliment, then goes back to a mild frown. “I’m pretty sure Sam and Quinn are doing their love songs today.”

“Dude, I can’t. I’ve got practice.” He swings his gear bag at Artie -the real one, the one with all his pads and shit, not the day to day backpack that fits his skates and helmet- maybe a bit too hard, and pulls it back a split second before it smacks him in the face. “Uh, sorry or whatever.”

Thankfully Artie doesn’t get upset about it. Nor does he get all annoying like Rachel did. He just asks “you gonna make tomorrow?”

“I don’t see why not.”

“I’ll see if I can get them to hold off.”

Patrick shakes his head. That hardly seems fair. “Hey, no. It’s fine. You can’t not hang out because I can’t join your flow.”

“Nah. The rest of New Directions held off when we were at football practice. Just because hockey’s the inferior sport-”

“You shut your turf-eating mouth.”

“That’s Sam, not me. I never get tackled.”

Patrick thinks that’s most likely a combo of it being physically difficult to tackle a guy in a wheelchair, and most opponents feeling too guilty to try to fuck up said guy in a wheelchair. But he’s not gonna say that. Even when sexist or racist things are _true_ , people still get mad at you for saying them. What he’s thinking is probably handicapped-ist or whatever it’s actually called.

“Whatever. We can’t all be as pro as you. Go do your thing, I’ll do mine. We’ll meet up tomorrow.”

“Don’t lose a tooth!” Artie smirks, then does a U’ey and goes down the hall in the opposite direction.

Ten minute later Patrick’s grinning looking at the set up. This is his favourite kind of practice. Not a bag skate, intended to half kill them. Not a drills day. No, this is what Coach calls a unity promoting practice. The rink has been divided into three miniature rinks, nets placed along the players benches and penalty benches. They’ll be playing two on two, a goalie and puck handling pair. It’s supposed to up your awareness of the game, having to play forward and defense at once, or having to play goalie. Coach never makes the actual goalies play goalie, which is smart of him. It scratches Mackie’s itch for a few days, makes him willing to stay where he’s supposed to be.

Still, Patrick can’t get straight on the ice to fake being anything but right wing. He’s got to grab his stick and put on his skates first. His gear bag can fit in his locker if he shoves, but any sticks brought to school live in the Coach’s locked office until after school. 

The fact that every Cutter is putting their skates on sitting on the bench is proof that McKinley doesn’t give a shit about any sport besides football. When they built the rink back in the day they didn’t contract for a change room, saying the large locker/weight room already at McKinley was sufficient for all sports, ignoring that the only teams it was actually convenient for were the football team and the track and field team. Still, the Cutters are better off than the swimmers. At least they can walk from the locker room to the rink in full gear and sneakers abnormally stretched over their thick socks. Swimmers only have towels and flipflops and those stupid skin tight shower caps. 

Whatever. It doesn’t matter if no one at McKinley watches their games. It only matters that scouts watch the games, and Sharpy’s already been eyeballed by Ohio University.

Patrick doesn’t make team A, B, or C, so he stays on the left bench with five other guys, the rest of them their own cluster on the opponents bench. Duncs and Seabs and Rick the Stick are chatting, Tazer’s glaring at the digital clock like he can make the huge red numbers count down to his turn faster, Bobbsie’s muttering to himself about how he better not be a goalie when Coach calls him because he’s an inflexible shit, and Patrick- Patrick’s silently humming lyrics of some of his Rock Your Body songs. Patrick just wants to be on the ice, doing everything at once and kicking ass. Mindless Self Indulgence understands that.

He does tune in to the conversation when Duncs makes an abrupt switch with ‘I saw the hottest thing ever today’. Closet-gay or not, the kind of sexual scenarios Duncs lays out always fascinate Patrick. When they’re old enough to go adult places, Duncs is going to get into some pretty kinky shit, Patrick is freakin’ certain.

“What’s that?” Seabs asks, always willing to be the straight-man.

“Zizes and Santana fighting.”

“You thought that was hot?”

“Duh.”

“I don’t see it,” Bobbsie says. The dipshit probably means the Lauren half, since his last ex-girlfriend had to go to the hospital for anorexia. That’s when the dipshit broke up with her. There’s a reason Patrick is looking forward to him graduating this year, even though he scores goals. People like that shouldn’t be in places where his sisters are.

“Picture Bissonnette beating Marchand to a pulp, with no ref. Now imagine they both have boobs and pussies and one is a known lesbian. Still don’t see it?” 

For a quarter of a second, Tazer flickers into Jonny. He takes off his hockey blinders to turn towards Duncs and ask “what were they fighting about?”

“Dunno, I turned the corner when Lauren threw Santana into the locker. And when I say threw, I mean _threw_ ,” Duncs clarifies, smutty smirk on his face.

Patrick actually knows this one. If he joins in this part, chances are they won’t notice that he didn’t actually cast his vote on the hot/not hot debate. “They both want Puckerman. Puck sang a love song to Zizes. I guess Santana said fuck that shit?”

“Right, yeah, Valentines.”

“Who’d you sing to? Are there any girls in Glee who are single, even?”

“I sang my song to my true love- hockey.” It’s bullshit, he hasn’t sung a word since his mashup introduction. He’s been invited to, Coach Schue even told him he could bring a girlfriend to sit in for his performance if he wanted, that it was only fair since everyone else in Glee was dating someone in Glee, but Patrick hasn’t. He’s pretty sure there are no Kanye mashups about pointless gay crushes.

“Whatever, you just don’t wanna tell Seabs you sang to his mom.”

Rick shakes his head. “Fucking Puckerman. How the hell does every girl in school want that ratty mohawk bastard?”

“You have a mullet, you can’t talk.”

“Like half of us got mullets. It’s a team thing. Tazer’s the freak outsider.”

“Yeah, the Cap is the outsider no one likes. Uh huh.”

Duncs and Seabs are still talking about fighting being hot, Bobbsie and Rick are still talking about mullets being the ultimate expression of team loyalty, and Tazer’s back to staring at the clock when it finally winds down. Coach waits for the buzzer to stop ringing, then calls out a ton of names and directions. The bottom line to it all is that Patrick doesn’t get to go on the ice yet. Fuck. If he’s not in the third round he’ll-- do nothing, because it’s practice, and that means Coach is God. But he’ll scowl really fucking hard.

Patrick’s not really watching who joins him on the bench. Until he gets his ice time, nothing will really matter. Except then a well padded leg bumps against his and he’s asked “how’s your singing shit going?”

Patrick’s hackles go up. There are a million ways that this is a trap, and only a few ways out. Possibly there are no ways out. At least it’s Moon though, not Rick. Moon can sometimes not be a bastard.

“Why, you wanna join?”

“Hell no. Arts is not my thing, man. Just figured you should let us freshies know if there’s gonna be an open spot on the first line next year.”

“You fishing for compliments, Moon? You know you’re good.”

The helmet on his thigh lets Moon fingercomb the damp long hair of his mullet. “No dude, for real. Senior year my brother said fuck it all. Dropped out of all his academic after school shit and joined the junior NRA. I thought my mom was gonna shit a cat. Who’s to say you won’t defect to Glee full time?”

“Jonny,” he replies immediately. Automatically. And then he very carefully doesn’t wince, because the only thing worse that blurting out that sort of thing is making it obvious that you didn’t mean to say it.

“Yeah, I guess he could stop anyone from doing anything.”

“Reason he’s got the C, right?”

Five minutes later Coach is switching them again, and Patrick practically hurls himself into the ice when he gets rink B, and Sharpy as his goalie. He’s just spent way too much time extolling Tazer’s fucking virtues while trying to not go over a Captain-my-Captain/BFF line. It’s stupid, and he doesn’t want to think about it anymore. Patrick’s gonna get out of his thoughts and score a thousand goals against Mackie and Smith. Because fuck Mackie, he doesn’t belong anywhere outside his little blue crease. If he won’t listen to Patrick saying it, he’ll just have to learn the hard way.

***

In a role reversal of yesterday, Patrick is standing at Artie’s locker after school, chatting with him as Brittany chews gum sitting on Artie’s lap. He doesn’t have any classes with either of them, they’re just sophomores for core classes with way different electives, but somehow he and Artie are having a conversation about education. More specifically, math. Patrick would never consider himself a brain, but he just gets physics. All that angle and friction stuff is just a really nerdy way of describing hockey. It’s not the perspective that Artie takes, but he gets it too.

It’s a lucky thing that Patrick understands math. It means he can contribute to the Cutters. Since Figgins started the minimum grade requirement last year, most of the hockey players have a specialty, the one class they’re getting higher than a C in that others will ask them about. Patrick helps out Duncs and Seabs sometimes with physics. He hasn’t given them cheat sheets since he got caught in November and got suspended for three days, but he knows how to legit explain things too. Artie apparently tutors Puck. And if Patrick’s following him correctly, he thinks a group study will be a good way to extend the olive branch.

“Historically, your guys mainly target the AV club.”

Patrick shrugs, grins despite himself thinking about Kessel from the Leafs literally inching away from the reporters that storm him, like if he slides away slowly enough they won’t notice him going. “Reporters vs hockey is kind of a thing. In the majors we get a lot of shit. I guess a shitty attitude filters down?”

“Okay, ignoring that amateur film makers aren’t douchy sports journalists, I guess it’s still admirable that your tormenting of others is for a non-something-phobic reason.”

“I’m not saying we’re _enlightened_ or some shit, but it’s really just that we hate ben Israel and his type.” Patrick thinks about that sentence for a second then tacks on “the tabloid type, not the Jewish type. Obviously.”

“I like Jewish people. They have good bread,” Brittany says. Patrick wonders for a second if there really is such a thing as Jewish bread, or if it’s just one of her crazy things, like how she thinks her cat is a Scientologist. 

Artie does what he has to do to maintain a relationship with the either dumbest or craziest girl in school, depending on what diagnosis her parents never bothered to get. He ignores her input and continues the conversation he was having before. “Yeah, I get it. Fuck the AV club. Which granted, still includes me, which sucks, but the point stands. You’ve been in New Directions a week and there hasn’t been any ‘you defected’ or ‘you stole our man’ revenge. It seems like there’s more potential here than the Titans would ever have.”

Patrick shrugs. He doesn’t know anything about the Titans, really. He likes watching their games, but as people they don’t matter to him.

“Anyway, I’m just saying it would be nice if at least a few of them didn’t hate us. Why couldn’t we start with a group study, some day when we don’t have Glee and you all don’t have hockey?”

“I dunno if Duncs and Seabs will hate you and Puckerman. I _know_ Puckerman hates me, and will Duncs and Seabs. We’re on the rival team. We’re hockey players. We’re evil, remember?”

“Don’t take Puck personally. He’s been kinda weird for the last few weeks. I’m just saying we could bridge the gap.”

Brittany kisses Artie’s cheek. “Can we go see Santana now?”

“Kaner will have to steer if you want to stay on my lap,” Artie says, like trusting Patrick enough to be in charge of his movement isn’t a big deal. Maybe he really _should_ get invested in Artie’s idea of inter-clique friendliness.

Patrick doesn’t fuck around and pretend to wheel them into a wall or get bored halfway to the choir room and walk off. Half the guys he knows would, but he’s trying to not be a turd, here, and he thinks actually completing this task properly is probably a good first step. Just because Artie can’t feel his legs doesn’t mean he wants them rammed into stuff. Consequently he’s the last into the room, and not paying attention for a second, because should he be locking the wheels, now that Artie’s in his place beside Mercedes and an empty chair for Brittany? That’s what you do with wheelchairs, right? Except if someone had control of his movements, Patrick would be really pissed if they decided he should just _not move_ just because they thought it was tradition.

He’s just deciding to not lock it, because Artie would have told him to if he was supposed to, when Brittany says “Oooh, more of them.” Patrick looks up instinctively. Even if Brittany talks like she already has CTE, that’s no reason to not listen. There’s more of _something_ , maybe band members, maybe a few Cheerios have joined to get their dancing fix post season, and it just might be interesting.

It’s interesting.

“What the fuck,” Patrick mutters. Apparently the hockey-glee gap has already been bridged, in the least likely way Patrick could ever have imagined. Sitting in the corner, at least two chairs away from anyone else in every direction, is Jonny.

“Friend of yours?” Artie asks rhetorically.

“Uh,” is all Patrick can manage before he rushes across the room and slams into the seat beside Jonny. “What the fuck?”

“Hey Kaner,” he replies completely causally, like crashing other peoples events is something he does regularly.

“Now that you’re here, you mind introducing your friend? Because he hasn’t,” Quinn snipes. Patrick wonders if that tone’s because she really is all perfect Miss Manners, accidental pregnancy aside, and not bowing and using your full name is rude, or if it’s her attempting to close ranks around the New Directions because they were friends when the rest of the school ditched her last year.

Mike nods. “Even prisoners of war give their name, rank, and serial number.”

Patrick doesn’t want to. Jonny shouldn’t be here, something is _up_ and introducing him is basically saying that he should know everyone in the room. To hell with Artie, this is not a Venn Diagram, Jonny should not be overlapping into this room.

Patrick has to, because all of New Directions is staring, and he doesn’t want them to think he’s ashamed or whatever. He likes it here, Puck and Evans aside, and he’s not letting Nameless Jonny fuck this up.

“He’s Jonny, he’s Captain, and his binary’s whatever codes out to ‘serious stick in the ass’.”

Coach Schue frowns. “Language, Kaner.”

“Look, can me and him have a second?”

“Sure, go ahead.”

Patrick grabs Jonny’s arm, willing to haul like he’s a semi being pulled by a single piece of rope if he has to. Luckily Jonny follows him into the hall easily. Patrick has the eldest child wisdom to close the Glee door before he starts this. “What the fuck?” Maybe third time will be the charm.

“You made it clear you weren’t going to quit.”

“Fucking right I’m not, and if you think you can just _awkward_ me out of-”

Jonny punches his arm. “Let me finish, asshole. You made it clear you weren’t going to quit. Duncs made it clear they're going to be a bad influence on you.”

“What, with Santana? She totally deserved it.”

“As if that didn’t prove my point, right there. It wasn’t just Zizes and Lopez. Earlier they made the entire school have a sex riot.”

“I think that’s an exaggeration.”

“No, it’s not. At the Homecoming pep rally they did that Britney Spears song and ben Israel got so hot he grabbed Bobbsie’s ass and then he fainted and then someone pulled the fire alarm and the entire school ran out of the building.”

Patrick snorts. That hardly counts. Jacob’s a creep and Bobbsie’s a creep and ditching at an alarm is hardly a mass orgy. He would have remembered a mass orgy. 

“More? They decided to do Rocky Horror for the school play, even though all the students would have needed permission slips to watch it. And Hudson walked around in his underwear between second and third period. Puck’s been to juvie, and the day he got out he started illegally busking. Tina made the principal think she’s a vampire. Mercedes did worth seventeen _thousand_ dollars of damage to Coach Sylvester’s car. That stupid mattress commercial they were in was totally illegal and almost got them kicked out of their tournament. Santana’s had surgical enhancement. They’re bad influences.”

“How do you even know that stuff?” Patrick doesn’t really remember any of this shit happening. Well, besides Santana coming back after summer vacation with bigger boobs. The drool stains of basically every single guy in school made that one obvious.

“Study your enemy.”

“They’re not Ghengis Khan!”

“Study your team then.”

Fair enough, Patrick thinks. Jonny -Tazer- would do either with the same amount of intensity.

“So, I’m monitoring-”

“You’re babysitting.”

“Whatever you want to call it, I need to know you’re not getting arrested the day before the game.”

“Fine. Whatever. Babysit away.” If he said no Jonny would do it anyway, so might as well pretend to have some dignity.

They file back into their seats. There’s still no one in the second or third row behind them, but at least there’s only one chair between Patrick and Tina. Patrick would have expected some curiosity from her, but instead she’s moonwalking her fingers down Mike’s arm. Which, whatever. Patrick’s seen a hundred more annoying forms of PDA. They’re a good couple, they deserve the niceness.

“So it’s still Valentine’s week, and only about half of you have sung about-” Coach Schue reaches back and taps the pink scrawled _love_ on the whiteboard. “Who’s up?”

Jonny elbows him. Patrick elbows him back. Jonny steps up his game by nudging him so hard it’s awkwardly stand or fall to the ground. Patrick stands to a dozen glances. “Go on. This is what you do, right?”

Patrick scowls at his supposed best friend as Coach Schue says “Kaner, great!” and cedes the floor.

Now everyone’s actively staring, most with interest, a few with contempt. Patrick doesn’t take Santana’s personally, he’s pretty sure her face is stuck like that. A few hours before Lauren laid down the smackdown, everyone in Glee savaged her for being an epic bitch. Jonny’s looking more Tazer-like, like he demands perfection. Patrick’s really not sure how that Captain shit is going to fly here, with Rachel running it all and Evans making a run for Finn, who’s obviously not ready to give it up. Whatever, not his number one concern right now. Patrick scans his brain for something appropriate, then grins when he’s found it. 

“Can I tell you a secret?  
You promise that you'll keep it?  
Cross your heart, not a soul  
There's so much that you don't know

I'm about to break, I'm about to shake, up an insurrection  
Do you want to face, do you want to taste, my secret weapon  
My aim is steady  
I'm locked and ready  
To blow your mind, make you feel divine  
With my affection  
My secret weapon

Just when you least expected  
I whipped out my wicked weapon  
You'd never know, I hide it well  
Just like heaven, just like hell  
You want it, I can tell”

Patrick sings chorus a second time, and fuck it, he’s dancing now, just like everyone else has for their song. He doesn’t have any planned moves, not like Mike and Artie did, but he’s honest to fuck enjoying himself, so he just can’t care if he looks awesome.

“Lay your arms down, you can't fight it  
Surrender to me cause I have no mercy

I'm about to break, I'm about to shake, up an insurrection  
Do you want to face, do you want to taste, my secret weapon  
My aim is steady  
I'm locked and ready  
To blow your mind, make you feel divine  
With my affection  
My secret weapon  
My secret weapon

So if you're ready  
I'll rock you steady  
Gonna blow your mind  
Make you feel divine  
With my affection  
My secret weapon  
My secret weapon”

At the end they’re all clapping and laughing. Even Evans. Even Puck. Patrick’s not sure what to do. With the Cutters individual success is still celebrated as a group, a swarming hug-like thing, or sticks thrust into the air like flags. This is different. He has the ridiculous urge to bow, but doesn’t, because that’s either okay or completely douchy. There’s no middle ground to a bow.

The only one who isn’t applauding is Mike. Mike looks like someone’s stabbed a puppy. “Good song and all, but what was that?”

“It’s called the Kaner Shuffle,” Jonny says before he can. “Isn’t it lovely?” It’s such a monotone that Patrick wonders if the room thinks Jonny actually thinks it’s good.

“I never thought I’d be saying this, but you’re worse than Finn.”

“Hey! I’m not that bad.”

“Good job Kaner,” Schue says from his slightly separate perch beside the band Patrick didn’t cue. “Thanks for our first generic love song.”

“Wasn’t generic,” Patrick says.

“No?”

“Nah.” Patrick flashes a grin. “It’s about my true love; hockey. I mean, ‘my aim is steady’? Secret weapon? And my affection is obviously about my killer boarding skills.”

“Passible boarding skills,” Jonny calls out.

“Fuck you, don’t piss on my excellence.”

“Kaner. Language.”

“Sorry,” he says completely unapologetically. Schue will realise the futility of nagging him about cursing way before Patrick actually remembers to stop.

“Who else has a song about love?”

Two performances later no one else is offering to sing. Schue lets them know they can hang out as long as they want and that the Civic Pavilion is open too, then retreats to his office. Patrick’s not sure what the fuck that is, but no one’s sprinting out of the room saying ‘Civic Pavilion ho!’ so he can’t be missing that much.

“Can I talk to you for a bit?” Finn asks as people start to disperse. He looks like strange mix of eagar and uncomfortable, and Patrick figures it’s another ‘how to make you not enemies with Puck and Sam’ speech, this time from the co-captain. Makes sense that it’s from him. Not only does everyone essentially ignore Rachel’s crazy, so Finn has no choice but to step up when something has to be said, Puck is Finn’s best friend. Kind of. They’re best friends apart from the explosive drama of last year when Puck got Quinn pregnant and Quinn made Finn think it was his for months and then they brawled in the middle of the hallway when Finn found out. Patrick’s got no idea how you get over that, but evidently they have.

“Jonny, hold up for a sec,” he shouts across the room, where Jonny’s talking to Mike and Tina, maybe about dancing if Mike’s expression is anything to go by. Jonny raises a hand in acknowledgement but doesn’t reply.

“Actually I was thinking I could give you a ride home?”

Patrick’s not gonna lie, not to himself. He likes his Jonny time, even if it’s stupid to constantly be around something so completely unrequited. But this motivational speech or whatever is a one time thing, and shit might start to suck if he refuses. And Jonny’s made it clear he’s gonna be at every Glee practice, so it’s not like Patrick’s never gonna get those after school minutes.

“Jonny, I’m getting a ride with Finn!”

Puck follows them to the parking lot without even asking Finn if he can get a ride too, leaving Patrick to guess the Hudson Chauffeur Service is an every day thing. Maybe that’s how they re-bonded, forced time in a car. Maybe their parents forced them into some big summer road trip or something. If Patrick was feuding with Jonny they would probably just have multiple fist fights until Patrick caved, or Jonny did that special kind of silence that meant apology and Patrick would lightly kick his ass one last time to get him to say the actual words. But if that didn’t work, Erica would totally shove him and Jonny in close quarters and tell them to shut up and deal.

That’s when Puck pulls out a set of keys, unlocks the truck’s doors and hops into the driver’s seat. Patrick didn’t see that coming, not all. Once he gets over the slight shock of it though, he realises it doesn’t change anything. Finn driving or Puck driving, they’re still gonna have a probably awkward as hell conversation about what Puck’s fucking problem with him is before he gets dropped off.

Patrick gets the hump seat, of course. He’s the one that’s not the best friend, of course he gets the sucky seat and legs pressing on him from two directions and a bunch of wrappers under his ass. It’s still better than the one time he went out with the team for a party and Rick made all ten of them sit in the bed so he could have his Cheerio girlfriend in the front with him.

Patrick’s a bit surprised when Puck pulls into an empty parking lot at some abandoned warehouse rather than drive around aimlessly, and a bit more surprised that Finn’s not questioning it, but he’s not all that concerned. He’s smaller than a lot of the guys on the Cutters. On hockey teams in general, really. That makes people underestimate him. He’ll never be the goon, but if this is about to be Finn letting Puck let off a little violent steam, Patrick can hold his own.

Neither of them open their door though. Puck doesn’t even take the key out of the ignition. Instead it’s just Finn saying “we wanted to ask you a few things.”

“And what, you were worried the CIA was following us?”

“We can’t go to his house, we can’t go to my house, you wouldn’t let us in your house, and a common place like the mall is totally out.”

Patrick still doesn’t get it, but maybe he’ll have the chance to. “What questions?”

“You’re gay.”

“One, that wasn’t a question. Two, don’t be dumb, I’m not a-”

Patrick gets cut off by a collarbone shatteringly hard elbow from his right. “Don’t say it. My brother left McKinley over that word, and shit like it, and I don’t want to hear it.”

Okay, yeah, he can admit that slur would have been overcompensating and douchy. That doesn’t mean he wants them to know they’re right. When there’s more than one source to a rumour, the scapegoat is totally boned, true or not. McKinley can’t know about him, about what he jerks off about at night.

“Right, yeah. No offense to Kurt, but I still-”

Puck speaks up for the first time, sounding completely confident he’s right. “Your song dude. It wasn’t subtle. It wasn’t about hockey either.”

“It was about a steady aim and secret weapons.” Because it was. And if it happened to have a double meaning to him, well, no one else gets to know that.

“It was about Toews, you fuckin’ liar.”

“It wasn’t.” He’s got three younger sisters, as if Puckerman can break him.

“Does he feel it back? Was that why you wouldn’t sing until he miraculously showed up?”

“I didn’t plan that. He just did it. And he’s straight....Not that I’m not.”

“Second question,” Finn says, drawing them from their nuh-uh/nuh-huh argument before it really has the chance to get heated. “Do you wanna fool around with us while you wait for some guy to reciprocate actual feelings?”

That is a huge twist Patrick didn’t see coming. “You’re not gay!”

“We’re not gay if you’re not gay.” Puck says in a tone that makes it clear he thinks everyone in the truck is full of shit.

“You and Lauren are almost dating!”

“Lauren is awesome, and her fighting is hot as shit,” and maybe Artie is right about Puck and Duncs meeting “but my dick compass points to Finn. She lets me swoon at her for about fifty bucks of chocolate so far, and everyone else fucks off and leaves me alone.”

That actually does make sense. Santana hitting on Puck and being smacked down by Lauren is proof enough that Lauren is a excellent beard. But there’s a massive part of this conversation that doesn’t make any sense at all. “So if Finn is your North, why are you asking me?”

Finn sighs. “Kurt was basically the test case for proudly out at McKinley. He got ran out.”

“There’s about a hundred people to blame it on,” Puck adds. “Karofsky was the worst, but pretty much every Titan except the five of us were assholes. Shit, four of the five of us used to be, Sam’s the only one that’s never done anything homophobic. The admin didn’t do shit. His friends stood up for him once, instead of every time. You could even point a finger at Kurt, since he decided to play stoic instead of making it known he wouldn’t stand for it. Humanity sucks, basically. But the bottom line is he came out and he got ran out. Test fucking failed. Me and Finn aren’t coming out, you haven’t, you _won’t_ , and if any other guy is whatever shade of queer, they won’t either. Which means no boyfriends for anyone until college. Except we kinda got lucky.”

Finn picks up the story like Puck just neatly drop passed him. “About a month ago we sorta thought Aiden, the sax player, was gay. We talked about what we’d do if he was. You know, since it sucked that he wouldn’t be able to do anything for three years. We figured if we both gave him some fun it wouldn’t be cheating on each other.”

“You’ve been dating for over a month?” How has no one heard about this? Jacob ben Israel is laying down on the gossip job, shit.

“Longer. I mean, not seven years longer, but.”

“If you’re not out, how’d you even start?” 

It’s something Patrick’s wondered about Jonny a hundred times. A thousand times. How to figure out if Jonny likes him -because sometimes it seems like there’s the faintest fucking shadow of a glimmer of possibility- without actually letting Jonny know, in case he doesn’t. Or worse, in case he’s one of those ‘they can exist, but they shouldn’t flaunt it’ types.

“Finn and Rachel broke up because Rachel found out Finn lost his virginity to Santana when he told her he’d never had sex. Because Rachel’s secretly driven by revenge just as much as stardom she enlisted me to have sex with her. We got as far as making out before I felt guilty and booked it to Finn’s to apologise. And then he asked why people always want to kiss me.”

“So he sort of showed me. So yeah, do you want in? Personally I reccomend Puck’s tongue on your balls.”

It’s not like Patrick’s a virgin. One time Erica was having a sleepover and her friend Natalie sneaked into his room and gave him a blowjob. It was nice, albeit a little traumatizing when he thought the red streaks were some kind of instant STI and not just lip gloss. But a threesome’s never come up on his sexual docket. Patrick’s barely even imagined it, unless that Jonny and Tazer!Jonny clonesex fantasy counts. He’s not exactly sure what happens next.

“What do you guys do?”

Puck snorts. “I got a girl pregnant at sixteen and and I earn grades by ‘cleaning teacher’s pools’. You really think there’s sex I don’t do?”

If Patrick was a better person he’d continue talking to Puck, maybe tell him to talk to a counsellor because a lot of that sentence alludes to some pretty bad shit. But, like more than one person’s told him, Patrick’s kind of a crap person. So he heaves himself over to the right, not because Finn is hotter than Puck, just because there’s more room in that direction. No stupid steering wheel in the way. Once he’s got both knees planted on either side of Finn and a hand on the assist handle to steady him, Patrick starts his first ever dude on dude kiss. 

It’s so much hotter than anything he’s had to do with girls to avoid awkward questions. The way Finn adds pressure to the kiss is different, the texture of his lips is different. The way he smells, too much spray on deodorant and sweat despite said deodorant, not light perfume and flavoured gloss is totally different, and really freakin’ appreciated. After a decade of sharing a bathroom with three sisters, Patrick’s not sure he can think of more of a turn off than multiple layers of fruity sugary scents.

Instead of having his hands on Patrick’s mid-back like girls do to guys, Finn’s got the automatic guy position of hands on Patrick’s hips. As they continue to kiss Finn’s fingers twitch, like they want to work towards ass soon. Patrick’s in agreement, he definitely wants Finn to work towards ass. Ten minutes ago he wouldn’t have even considered it, but Finn’s features are pretty proportional and he’s basketball tall. He’s probably got a great dick.

There’s some rustling to his side but Patrick doesn’t really think about it. He’s too busy making out, too busy tugging and releasing the hair just along the nape of Finn’s neck. If the enthusiasm of the kiss is anything to go by, Finn likes it. Then all of a sudden Patrick’s thinking about Puck very hard, because he’s hip to hip with him, facing the back, and Puck’s hand is comfortably sliding up the back of his shirt. 

“So this threesome shit is real, then,” Patrick pulls away to ask. 

Neither answer his question because the moment he stopped kissing Finn the guy turned his head so he and Puck could. It’s basically porn in front of him. Patrick wonders if it’s rude to tell them to stop and go back to Finn being all over him. Probably, since they were here first. They were together first, and this is some sort of fluke, so he needs to not be an asshat and get it stopped before it really starts.

Finn doesn’t stop kissing Puck with the easy sexiness that means they’ve made out a hundred times, but he does begin to divide his attention. His hand, the one that’s not on Puck’s jawline, moves from Patrick’s hip up to his shirt, and then under it. Patrick’s never really bothered with his chest when jerking off, between his balls and dick and asshole and mouth and hair he’s already several hands short. Even now he’s not sure now if this is something that works for him, or if it’s because it’s a hot guy doing it. He’ll have to experiment later, when he’s alone again. For now he just sucks a hickey into the side of Finn’s neck. The way Finn’s getting hard under Patrick’s lap is making him feel possessive, like he wants to remind Finn that him dick’s half Patrick’s.

Then Puck is reversing the course. Rather than join Finn pinching a nipple, Puck’s hand is on Patrick’s back before it slides past his belt, into his jeans. His fingers press in and out of his crack with intent, like they want to go lower, do more, and it’s so obscenely hot that Patrick’s eyes close and he just sort of falls face forward. He’s forehead to temple with them, and then one of them turns their head to full on kiss him again and it doesn’t even matter who, because Patrick just wants to do this forever.

Half an hour later finds Patrick walking gingerly into his house. Puck had baby wipes in his glove compartment, so the insides of his underwear aren’t that bad, but he’s really starting to chafe. Fooling around -his first gay fooling around, and jesus christ does he wish he had someone to brag to- made him come twice. Puck didn’t care though, when the kissing and the pseudo-fucking made Patrick shoot off, no chirping about being a quick release, he just jerked Patrick from soft to hard with Patrick’s come coating his fingers. It’s probably because by the end of it, Finn came twice too. He’s even more of a quick release than Patrick is. Puck’s probably used to it. 

“You’re getting home later from free skate every day,” Jackie says as soon as the door closes, before he’s even got his shoes off.

“Yeah. One day dad’s going to get home before you do, then you’ll be really screwed.”

“Whatever. I’ll deal with it when it happens.”

“You’re not that tough Paddy, don’t try.”

“No, I’m just tired. I’m gonna do homework and nap.” 

What Patrick’s really gonna do is lie back and daydream about an All Star hockey team of 2015 that he’ll be on. Worlds, maybe, which means no Sidney Crosby or Ovchekin, only Americans. But saying nap gives him a reason to get naked and the less touching his super sensitive junk the better.

***

There aren’t many seats left when Patrick comes in, Jonny trailing behind him. Normally the club is pretty scattered amongst the twenty or so plastic chairs. Today everyone is squeezed into the rightmost seats. The reason is obvious; Coach Sylvester is sitting in, all burgundy track suit and vicious look on her face. Mike in the top row, Santana in the middle, and Brittany in the bottom are the human barriers, and even they are sitting two chairs over. Patrick sits where he can. It’s first come first served, and it’s not his fault if he makes sure he’s snug between Quinn and Lauren and Jonny either has to sit beside Rachel, or encroach on Sylvester’s space. Then Quinn moves so that there’s an empty chair beside him for Jonny to sit in. Patrick’s not sure where she picked up the idea that they’re _that_ co-dependant, but even if she’s wrong, he’s not going to argue it. If Jonny ever stops thinking Rachel’s insane and start thinking she’s dedicated and efficient, it’ll turn into The Perfect Storm; Life Goals edition. Patrick would really like to avoid that shit, and keeping them apart is a key component to that.

He’s not sure how much later they are than the rest of the club. Patrick didn’t time it, but he’s pretty sure they only stopped to talk to Sharpy for a few minutes, promising that they’d do optional skate tomorrow, not optional Glee. However long it’s been, it’s not long enough for the room to have developed into full blown revolt. Tina’s only just now complaining “this cannot be happening.”

Artie nods, a counterpoint to his girlfriend shaking her head. “Yeah, this seems like a terrible idea.”

Patrick’s not sure what the actual idea is, but he’s pretty confident he’ll find out in the form of every other member of the club complaining about it.

Coach Schuester holds up his hands in the classic ‘slow down, shut up’ position. “Guys! It’s not up for discussion, okay? Now it’s no secret that Coach Sylvester has taken her licks.”

Santana shakes her head. “I mean… just wanky…”

Sylvester looks over at Santana with a grimace. Patrick’s seen that look before, on Giroux’s face when the Flyers are playing the Penguins.

Coach Schue continues, doggedly. “And I believe that she could use a little sympathy from us.”

Of course, because Coach Schue has basically no control over his team, that comment spurs everyone into talking or making faces. Mercedes is appalled when she says “sympathy? From us? Nuh uh,” and Quinn is in agreement with “yeah, all she’s ever done is make our lives miserable.” Santana is downright snide with “she got exactly what she deserved.”

Of course, Sylvester being Sylvester, she doesn’t take the attitude lying down. In a classic Sue Sylvester personal attack she turns to Santana and says “you’re lucky I left my blow-gun at home Air-bags, cause I got a clear shot at your nonnies,” and then jerks her head forward like she wants Santana to flinch backward.

“Guys! Coach Sylvester has had her recent setbacks but she is a proven champion. We could do worse than to have that winning record in our midst.” Schue’s hands drop to position on his hips to make him seem more authoritative. Really, he could use about ten million pointers from Coach Lloyd. Schue couldn’t order a group of stoners to eat a doughnut.

“Let me break it down for you. I am no longer a threat to you people, alright. I’m just hoping that your singing and dancing around will pull me out of my doldrums and give me a reason to live. Is that too much to ask?”

Judging by the expressions of the people sitting around him, it is. 

“Guys, it’s settled. Sue’s going to be with us for the week.” Schue turns to pick something up from the piano behind him.” “Now, I received an envelope in the mail today. We know that we’re facing Kurt and the Warblers at Regionals.”

“Sweet Porcelain,” Sylvester sighs. Jonny nudges his knee in a question. Patrick shrugs. Best guess is that’s what Sylvester nicknamed Kurt when he joined the Cheerios last year, but he wasn’t a cheerleader this year and Patrick can’t imagine Sylvester holding good feelings towards people who aren’t actively benefiting her, so who knows?

“And it looks like this year, we face Aural Intensity again.”

Mercedes sighs. “They cleaned our clock last year.”

“It seems that the governing board has assigned a theme to this year’s Regionals and part of our score will be based on how well we interpret it.”

Patrick can feel Jonny adjusting in his seat, sitting up taller. He can practically feel Jonny transforming into Tazer like some freaky Sailor Moon thing, except with less inappropriately short skirts and more scrunched foreheads. Jonny doesn’t actually _care_ about Glee club, he still hasn’t joined in a group number yet, but Patrick knows Tazer will be god _damned_ if he doesn’t get in on plotting a winning strategy.

“This year’s theme...” Mr Schue flashes the paper at them, like they can see the text from where they’re sitting “anthem. Now who can tell us who what an anthem is?”

Rachel raises her hand, but Brittany doesn’t wait to be called upon before answering matter-of-factly. “It’s the bottom of an ant’s pants.”

Schue lies, says nicely, “so close, so close. No, an anthem is an epic song. Filled with a- a ground swell of emotion, that somehow seems bigger than itself. Even bigger than the person performing it!”

Evans raises his hand. “Mr. Schue?” Without waiting for a reply Evans gets up and stands next to their coach.

“Oh, hey Sam. I didn’t even notice your new haircut.”

“Yeah, I’ve been looking at a new image to go with my one-man band, The Justin Bieber Experience.”

Quinn mutters “you have got to be kidding me.”

“Dude, that haircut makes your mouth look even bigger.” 

At least half the room starts laughing. Patrick doesn’t, too busy staring at Evans’ mouth. It didn’t seem that big before Puck said anything, but now it’s all Patrick can see. Evans is suddenly eighty percent mouth. It’s weird how his brain immediately goes to the question of if Evans has ever sucked dick. It would be a damn shame if he was completely straight, Quinn doesn’t need all of that, not the way a guy would.

“Laugh all you want, but that kid’s an epic talent. And there’s a number that I’ve been working on that I’ve been meaning to show off. And I think it qualifies as an anthem because... it’s just hugely emotional and... sums up our generation.”

Coach Schue pats Sam on the chest, obviously humouring him. It makes Patrick feel good, oddly, because he knows that if Schue will let Evans sing Bieber, he’ll probably let anyone sing anything. That bodes well for when Patrick wants to get his Kanye on.

“Alright, let’s hear it buddy.”

Evans grabs an acoustic guitar that’s near the band but not currently being used. He strums a few chords as he centers himself in the middle of the room, then starts to sing, first ‘oooh’s’, then actual lyrics. Patrick doesn’t like it, and he doesn’t like Evans. But he’ll clap when he’s done, because that’s how teams work.

***

“Mr Schuester, sir?”

Patrick rolls his eyes. Of course Jonny would call Schuester sir, not Coach, or just plain Schue. Coach is a more important term to Jonny than Patrick, who doesn’t care where his game suggestions are coming from, as long as they make him win. He likes Coach Lloyd, but he’d listen to the Zamboni driver if she had good plays. And even though everyone calls Schuester Schue, just like ninety percent of their friends have nicknames based on their last names, Jonny’s got a clearer line of authority in his head. It’s why they’re standing here after practice, instead of going directly back to Jonny’s to try to get the XBox before David does. 

“Yes Jonny?”

“We just wanted to let you know ahead of time we won’t be coming to Glee next week.”

“You won’t? Did you get Slushied? You need to look at it like a right of passage. I think some of your fellow members can tell you how to best deal with it.”

Patrick shakes his head. “It’s not that. I wouldn’t care anyway. We’re hockey players. We get heckled.” We also punch people in the face Patrick thinks but doesn’t say.

“Is it Sue? Because really, I can’t imagine her sticking around very long. This sitting in thing is just a stop gap measure Emma, uh, Mrs Pilsbury made me do.”

“Look, it’s not that. Glee stuff is fine. Jonny said it wrong. We’re not quitting, we just can’t make pratice.”

“No?”

“It’s March,” Jonny says flatly.

The words clearly aren’t much of an explanation for Schue, so Patrick does his best to clarify for the non-athletes in this conversation. “The Cutters are playing their last game next Friday night. Coach Lloyd will have us at practice every day. He’s not like Sylvester, he doesn’t care that we’re here and he doesn’t secretly want to gnaw off your face-” because holy shit does Patrick not buy this reformed Sylvester act. “But it’s the final. You can’t half ass practice before the final.”

“I understand. You forget that while I know Sue, I also know Shannon. Uh, Coach Bieste. I expect you to show the same amount of dedication before Regionals though.”

“Of course!”

“Well, thanks for telling me. You’d be surprised how many people just skip without letting me know.”

Jonny smiles smugly. Yeah, yeah, he’s responsible and adults like it. Whatever. That doesn’t mean Patrick’s gonna thank him, or tell him he’s right, or anything.

“If you carry this professionalism into hockey I’m sure you’ll win your championship.”

Patrick would enjoy watching Jonny’s smug expression fall into devastation except he’s sure his face looks the same. What the _hell_ , why would you just say that to someone? Fucking jinxes.

***

It’s not Rachel that opens the door when he rings it about twenty minutes after her invitation said to arrive. An actual, physical invitation, a pink card with little gold stars all over it. Patrick’s pretty sure the last invite he got was a Transformers themed one for a birthday party, like a decade ago. But he’s here and Mike’s letting him in.

“FYI, you should set up a bailing strategy right now.”

“Really? Why?”

Mike doesn’t answer him, just leads him down a flight of stairs. The basement is full of silent members of New Directions and yeah, now he gets it. No one’s broken out the booze yet, so the vibe’s currently eighth graders lining the walls of a school dance.

“Where’s Jonny?” Rachel asks.

Lauren smirks. “Are you going to chop down a door now?”

“I don’t understand.”

“You didn’t catch that reference and you’re wearing [that dress](http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x270/gala_apples/bandom/Rachel_Dress_zps9d9ed16e.jpg). How are you the worst human being ever?” Santana sneers.

“Hey!”

“I didn’t invite him,” Patrick says. It seems like it should be obvious, since Jonny’s not actually with him, but maybe they don’t get his car pooling situation.

“Why not?”

“We lost. The Cutters, I mean.”

“Didn’t you get silver? Or second, or however that works?”

“We lost,” Patrick repeats. “Rick’s girlfriend is throwing a wake for the season, but not all the guys are there. I’m pretty sure Sharpy and Abby are having depressed sex. Moon’s brother is taking him to a strip club. Which is actually sort of great, since he’s fourteen, and looks it.”

Santana laughs. “He’s gonna come back with a disease. Only really sleazy places would let someone that underage in.”

“You’d know, wouldn’t you, Mrs Plastic Surgery At Sixteen?”

Santana sticks her finger in Lauren’s face. An all around bad move, if you ask him. “Bieste isn’t here to save you this time.”

“Save _me_? Are you on something?”

Patrick is not Duncs. He doesn’t need to see blood to have a good time. Also, if they destroy Rachel’s basement she’ll probably never have another house party, and that would be a damn shame. So he does what he can to get the conversation off their drama; puts it directly back on his drama. “Louie’s for sure at Rick’s, but he’s got a crazy low tolerance, so he’s probably already passed out. I’m here, obviously. And Tazer, you ask? Doom spiral. Never mind drinking, he’s probably not eating or sleeping. If he could will himself into not breathing, he would.”

“If it’s that bad shouldn’t you be there with him?”

“No. Like Rick the Stick I drown my sorrows. I just thought it would be more fun here than with fuckin’ Bobbsie trying to get all the girls to give the team remorse blowjobs. It’s gross.” Even if he was straight, it would still be gross.

That’s when there’s noise on the stairwell. Patrick didn’t even notice Rachel leaving, but she’s back with a whole herd of people; Finn and Kurt and some guy Patrick’s never seen.

“I’m totally off the clock right now Rachel,” the guy says, taking off his jacket. “I’m not a Warbler, I’m just Blaine. I’m not even wearing my uniform.”

No, no he’s not. And he’s pretty damn hot, despite the cardigan. Patrick wonders if he’s Kurt’s boyfriend, but doesn’t know who to ask. Besides, the ghost of Kurt hasn’t much come up in conversations he’s had, and Patrick really doesn’t want his first mention of him to be ‘are they...together’, in case it’s interpreted as negative. He won’t be able to refute with ‘I’m not homophobic, I’ve recently sucked dick’, because no one’s supposed to know that.

He doesn’t have long to think about it, because Kurt spots him and locks on like a sniper or a zombie hunter. In a few rapid steps in fancy leather boots he crosses the room to where Patrick’s sitting on the mini stage the Berrys have installed into their Broadway themed basement, legs slung out in front of him.

“Who is this and why is his hair allowed into this house?”

“It’s my playoff mullet.”

“Playoffs of what? The Who Can Be Most Hideous Spring Games 2011?”

“No. I had to get it, so did almost all the Cutters.” Except for Jonny, but that’s fine. One day he’ll be in NHL playoffs, and he’ll have to not shave a scraggly-ass beard for months, and Patrick will save pictures from Google Images, and then he’ll make a PowerPoint and force Jonny to watch it and he’ll laugh maniacally.

“Rachel, you brought a hockey player into your house? And you didn’t warn me?”

“Patrick’s been in Glee for three weeks and he hasn’t been phobic or racist or sexist once.”

Kurt’s sneer is pretty impressive. They could use that in faceoffs, even if he has no other applicable skills. “I’m sure you’re a very nice brutal hockey goon. But can you wear a paper bag on your head? Because I cannot deal with that.”

“The season’s over anyway. I could shave it all off.”

“And by can you mean will.”

“Um, no,” Rachel sing-songs nervously. “No body modification in my gay dads’ house. And now that we’re all here lets go over the rules.”

There’s an art deco bar stool in the middle of the room with a few cases of wine coolers and a pile of dollar store admit one tickets. Rachel picks up a strip. “Everyone gets two drink tickets to keep things from getting out of hand. We are serving wine coolers today, that is our specialty drink.”

Patrick raises his eyebrows at Lauren, whose expression is even more annoyed than usual. Two drinks? Is she fucking mental? No one’s going to get drunk on two shots of Everclear, never mind two wine coolers. This is not the party he thought he was coming to. He can’t help but imagine how many people will already be stumbling into walls and spilling drinks at Rick’s.

“Brittany,” she suddenly snaps out. “Remember, no sitting on anything.”

Patrick must have missed that earlier. Evidently Brittany did too, using the washer as a chair the way she is.

“Okay everybody. Cheers!” Rachel shouts, thrusting her wine cooler into the air. Patrick’s not really the type for blushing, his emotional range runs more toothy grins and fists-of-rage and the occasional overwhelmed tears, but fuck is he feeling some secondhand embarrassment. She’s seventeen and this is a house party, how are things this lame?

“Great party Rachel,” Artie fakes. “We gotta run.”

Tina chimes in with her and Mike’s excuse, and Patrick sees how this is. Before everyone can run back up to the main floor Patrick whispers ‘wait a sec’, then pulls out his phone and texts a few guys. Not Rick who will deny entry out of spite, but Seabs and Mackie. He asks what basically boils down to if the party is big enough to not notice if half the Glee club crashes. Santana and Brittany wouldn’t seem out of place, but Mercedes will, and even Finn-the-Titan might, unless the crowd is large.

“Why’s everybody leaving?” Rachel stammers at Puck and Finn. Patrick can tell they’re going to leave together. They’re probably going to be doing _stuff_ together, and if Seabs says crashing’s not gonna happen, that is a very excellent second option. He’s only had sex once since Monday; a dry spell that’s nothing compared to the first sixteen years of his life, but just seems insanely long now.

“Because this party blows.” Puck explains.

“But I haven’t even had my first sip yet! How am I supposed to write about life if I can’t even throw a party?”

“Look, if you want everyone to stay, you have to let me break into your dads’ liquor cabinet. No one’s going to get buzzed off two wine coolers.” 

The man speaketh the truth, that’s all Patrick can say.

“I’ll replace it before they get home.”

Rachel looks to Finn, who nods his head in approval. Finn’s probably full of shit, following in the grand tradition of wild promises pre-party, subjects being things like we’ll help clean up, and the music won’t be loud enough to annoy the neighbours, and we’ll only puke in the toilet. Patrick’s done parties like these enough to know better, but Rachel trusts her ex-boyfriend more than anyone else in the world. Him nodding like that is underhanded, yeah, but it also means Patrick doesn’t have to worry about what Seabs is going to reply with. She’ll let them make this party an actual party, thanks to Finn.

It takes Puck all of ten seconds to work open the locked liquor cabinet. Patrick would be willing to bet at least half of the room’s occupants could do it. Puck pulls multiple bottles out and puts them in a row on the bar top.

“Rachel, you have a deck or two of cards? We need drinking games.”

She gulps nervously, then nods. As she runs upstairs Evans joins Puck behind the bar. He squats to look inside the mini-fridge, then turns around with plastic bottles in hand. “Cluster to the right if you want Malibu and juice, to the left if you want Amaretto and Coke.”

Really, Patrick would rather pound back a few shots, not dress it up with pretty flavours. But whatever, he can kick off the night with a red disposable cup. Especially if Evans is liberal with the portion of booze to mix.

Twenty minutes later things have broken off into games. Mike, Mercedes, Tina and Quinn are playing beer pong with inches of tequila, Brittany’s laid out on Artie’s lap with her shirt off so Santana can do body shots, and Puck, Rachel, and Blaine are getting hammered hard with Left Hand Right Hand. Patrick’s with Evans and Lauren, playing the aptly named Gin Rummy, taking a shot of each at each multiple of fifty points gained. Mixing liquors isn’t the best for tomorrow’s hangover, but what’s it matter? Patrick’s got no hockey to play any time soon, and his other responsibilities aren’t as much necessities as suggestions. Plus the rum is hitting Evans hard -probably the reason he put those two bottles out first, he knew how he’d react to it- and he’s way less of an asshole when drunk.

Some time after they all start dancing -and fuck everyone, they only _wish_ they could do the Kaner Shuffle with the fucking skill and grace he has- Spin the Bottle gets suggested. Patrick’s not really sure who said it. Before he can focus his swimming mind on something difficult like voice recognition there’s a group chant and it’s like ten voices all at once. Patrick joins in on the _bottle, bottle, bottle_ , and then he’s somehow sitting cross-legged in a ragged circle without remembering the distance in between.

The first kiss is Mercedes and Sam. Mercedes can barely stop laughing for long enough to plant her lips, and when Sam pulls away she’s laughing again. Patrick can’t help himself, he leans over and hugs her. He just really likes happy drunks. Patrick would drink with anyone, even some random hobo, if he knew they were gonna smile.

Second spin is Sam and Mike. Everyone stares at them, wide eyed. Patrick wonders what they’ll do. Claiming they can’t, it’s cheating on their girlfriends is out, since Sam’s kiss with Mercedes was cheating too, and he didn’t care if Quinn cared then. The Cutter’s party classic of ‘no homo’ won’t fly either, not with Kurt and Blaine in the room. Maybe Mike will-

Maybe Mike will kiss Sam, and there will be tongue, and _wow_ Patrick did not see that coming. Sam’s wide lips make him a good kisser. Good thing, since everyone knows Quinn’s not putting out this year, after last year’s shitstorm. Sam will probably be stuck at first base for the next decade.

Everyone Patrick kisses tastes great, and everything’s all fun until the party hits it’s first bump of drama. Kurt, who’s clearly pretty desperate to suck Blaine’s dick, throws a fit when Blaine kisses Rachel and then won’t stop. It’s subtle, especially for a guy currently wearing a shirt covered in bondage straps. No launching into a brawl that gets cops called, or lamps broken and art knocked off the walls. No ugly names either. He just gets a little hysterical for a minute, basically the spanning time from kissing to the end of Blaine and Rachel doing a duet of Don’t You Want Me. 

Patrick gets gay-Blaine making out with clearly-female-Rachel, he really does. Currently he’s really horny. Horny enough to be indiscriminate, which is pretty much exactly how all his Cutter friends think he’s a player. He can make out with anyone when he’s drunk. He could probably make out with Coach Sylvester, which would be dick witheringly terrifying sober. Rachel’s not that bad, comparatively.

He has a shot of something while Blaine and Mercedes do some diva song together. Their sexual tension isn’t as high as Blaine and Rachel’s, but they might make out too. Who knows? It would be kinda funny if the guy first base’d his way through New Directions, except then Kurt might have a heart attack. Patrick’s not entirely sure what he’s drinking. It’s brown, but his taste buds are seared off at this point, so it could be whiskey or rum or brandy for all his tongue can tell. It doesn’t really matter, as long as it helps to keep him at this level of drunk. This level of drunk feels really fucking good, except for how he wants to jerk off on someone’s face, and Puck and Finn are busy, and Jonny isn’t even here.

The bottle the alcohol came from is sitting in a small pool of spilled liquor beside half a dozen shot glasses. None of them are full anymore, Patrick took the last one. It’s only polite that he refills them all, and pretty dexterously, if you ask him. Thank god for hockey hands.

He’s downing another shot, one of the ones he just filled, when Puck sidles up to him. Puck smells half like the cologne Patrick’s already gotten used to having around him, and half like limes. That second one is probably from the dirty dancing with Brittany, who’s been sticking faithfully to tequila, doing the whole body shot-salt-lime production with Santana. It is seriously just a matter of time until Brittany dumps Artie and goes back to Santana full time.

“Do they make lime flavoured lube?” Because Patrick knows it’s not, Puck and Finn haven’t left the basement at the same time all night, Puck doesn’t secretly have citrusy lube and a bit of come leaking out of him. But fuck is that hot to imagine. Fuck, is that imaginary scene easy to be jealous of.

“I want something in me,” he whispers to Puck. At least Patrick thinks he’s whispering. Volume is hard when you’re drunk. No one’s really looking at him, though, so he’s probably whispering.

“Shit, really?”

“Yeah. I really want something inside me.” It’s weird how all of a sudden his entire body is just aching, how it feels like he’s open and needs to be filled. “Do you wanna?”

“What happens if I don’t?” Puck says lowly. 

Patrick thinks Puck’s not being a jerk, and he’s not doing no-means-no. Patrick thinks Puck wants to hear stuff about begging, dirty talk stuff. But Patrick can’t think of anything good so he tells the truth. “I’ll go rinse an empty wine cooler and then I’ll deepthroat it and then I’ll slide it up my ass and fuck myself with it. And I’ll keep fucking and fucking until I come.”

Puck blinks at him for a second, then bellows “Finn! Emergency!”

Across Rachel’s basement Finn looks up from his conference with Sam and Quinn and the Yellow Pages, then trots over. “You don’t need a cab,” he says patiently. “I’m driving you.”

“No, it’s a buttfucking emergency.”

Finn splutters and looks around frantically. “Dude!”

“Hey,” Puck snaps back, totally unapologetic. “You stand here and look this guy in the eye as he tells you about makeshift sex toys he’s going to fuck himself with and then tell me this isn’t an emergency.”

“We can’t just- We gotta go home last, so I can give rides or help call cabs. Even though I’d totally want to, with you guys, me and Kurt have to make sure that no one’s falling over in the middle of the crosswalk.”

“Uh. Brainstorming. Uh.” Puck frowns for a second before he comes up with something. “Okay! Tell Kurt to not let anyone leave for ten minutes, and we’ll go upstairs to fuck Patrick then be right back down. We don’t gotta leave.”

That sounds like a plan that Patrick can get behind. Or, well, on his hands and knees in front of, technically. He’s just got to finish selling it. Puck set up an assist, Patrick’s gotta drill it home. He grins wide, his winning game smile. He can be endearing as fuck, if he wants to. “If you fuck me I’ll suck your dick after. I don’t even care if it’s gross.”

“Jesus,” Finn mutters.

“Right?!”

Finn hesitates for a moment, and Patrick starts to wonder what he’s going to have to do to push this. Maybe if he trips and falls and lands lips first on Finn’s face he’ll remember that sexytimes are the best times. Then Finn calls across to his brother “Kurt, the three of us have to talk for a minute. Don’t let anyone leave until I’m back,” and it’s like the sun breaking through clouds, or not getting a penalty for a rough check. Something you knew you wanted, but didn’t guess the actual awesomeness of until it’s actually happening.

The slender boy chuckles lightly. “Blaine can’t even walk. He’s sitting in the corner weaving a shoelace through Artie’s spokes. I can’t imagine going anywhere any time soon.”

“Good,” Finn replies. Then they’re up the stairs, and Patrick can’t really remember climbing them, but his mutant ability to teleport only when drunk is way less important than throwing himself backward onto Rachel’s queen bed. He’s gonna get laid and it’s gonna be fucking spectacular.

“Where do you think the lube is?”

“I don’t think Rachel has any. Girls don’t need it,” Puck says with the full confidence of being the only person in the room to have dozens of female notches in his belt. “Unless they’re into kinky stuff, and I’m pretty sure Berry doesn’t use sex toys. Unless you know different?”

Finn rolls his eyes. “Yeah fucking right. I never got past first base.”

“Is second base fingers in my ass?” Patrick knows it’s not, but he’s proving a point, here. “Because you can totally get that with me.”

“We gotta find supplies first.”

“You can fuck me dry?” Seriously, the amount of time he’s had to wait is ridiculous.

“Jesus. Puck, if we don’t find it soon I’m gonna jerk off on him and then-”

“Look, there’s Berry and Berry, right? They might be old, but your mom and Burt are proof that old people don’t stop fucking-”

“Puck! Gross!”

Patrick has to laugh at the horrified expression on Finn’s face. He’s not wrong to be grossed out, Patrick wouldn’t want to know about his own parents sex lives, or anyone over twenty five, really, barring celebrities, but his scrunched up face is still funny.

“I’m just saying, they should have some. Somewhere. You check the bathroom, I’ll check their bedroom.”

Patrick thinks a lot about being thirty. He will be a famous hockey player by then, a household name. He’ll have some sort of permanent injury; a plate in his face, or a sewn tendon, but he’ll be playing twenty five goals in thirty games like Crosby and Ovechkin. He’ll make stupid commercial endorsements and get free shit. He’ll have a Stanley Cup under his belt, and some USA gold. 

Most of the time he really wants to be thirty. Not now though. Thirty year olds get whiskey dick, but he’s sixteen and his cock’s working just fine. Both of his -lovers? Definitely not boyfriends. Fuck buddies?- have deserted him, but Patrick’s got his pants and underwear kicked off and is appreciating the hell out of his hard cock. Yeah, a dick that takes no prisoners is a great part of being a teenager.

Finn’s back first. He’s got a jar of Vaseline in his hand. In the time he’s been gone, Patrick’s stripped and displayed himself on the bed. He draws his heels a little closer, spreading himself more. “Get to it.”

“Shouldn’t we wait-”

“My ass waits for no man!” Patrick snaps. “For all we know Puck blacked out in Mr and Mr Berry’s room and won’t be back. Or got eaten by a bear.”

The vaseline is thick when Finn presses two coated fingers into his ass. Patrick’s used to the cheap Rexall brand of lube, slippery and drying sticky, not Vaseline gliding and melting. Still he’s not gonna complain, not when Finn’s stretching him open like he deserves. Patrick came to this party, not the Cutter party, which is probably a poor choice for his standing at McKinley. He’s owed sex. 

Still, it’s good of Finn to agree. He deserves fun too. Patrick grins down the length of his body to where Finn’s curled up at the end of Rachel’s bed. “You can jerk off on me, if you want.”

“Shit yeah.”

Patrick expects Finn to lose his finesse, to not be able to work two hands in different rhythms. Hell, sometimes just jerking off with the wrong hand is enough to throw Patrick off. But Finn’s doing the job perfectly, and Patrick can feel his entire body flushing, his blood rising to the surface like it always does when he’s about to come.

“You fuckers started without me!” Puck looks offended as hell. He’s got a bottle of lube and condoms in hand, so clearly the search of the Berry’s bedroom was successful.

“And finished too,” Patrick laughs. “But I bet you could fuck me hard again.” Puck’s only fucked him twice, but there’s a reason he’s sort of a pool boy prostitute. He’s a goooood fuck.

“Oh, think so?”

“Yeah.”

Puck leers at him, look interrupted only by his long sleeved shirt coming off. “I think so too.”

The bed shakes as Puck climbs onto it and Finn moves to the vacant left side so Puck can take his place. Patrick gets this mental image of them just trading places all night, fucking him in turns, and yeah, it’ll only take a few of those flashes to get hard again. His dick is easy, and Puck and Finn are hot as hell.

“Has Finn done enough...”

Puck’s really close, peering at his asshole, and it’s a huge fucking turn on. Patrick reaches down to rub his palm over his cock, then sits up a little so he can reach Puck’s.

“If this doesn’t go in me in the next ten seconds I’m calling party foul.”

In response Puck’s got one hand on Patrick’s asscheek, spreading him. Patrick’s hoping for a perfunctory fingering and then getting on with the show, but instead Puck starts drizzling the Berry’s expensive high end lube over him.

“You don’t need to. Finn used stuff. I wouldn’t really let him fuck me dry.” Yeah, he totally would. But whatever, they don’t need to know that if it horrifies them.

“Used vaseline. Vaseline kills condoms. Gotta counteract it with real lube,” Puck replies.

Patrick’s not at risk of getting preggers like Quinn, not getting done in the ass, and not without a womb, but Puck’s made it pretty clear that fucking without a condom is a huge turn off for him. So he lets Puck do what he thinks he has to do, and just wriggles his ass enticingly, hoping that Puck will be done prep soon.

Patrick’s body just sings in relief when Puck pushes into him. He’s got something to clench down on, something pushing him wide. And it doesn’t matter that he’s squeezing just to feel that hot sweet tension because Puck isn’t hesitant. Puck knows Patrick’s clenched body doesn’t mean _stop, wait, it’s too much_ , that it means _fuck, finally_ and _make me take it_.

Patrick’s still hard when Puck’s done. He’s not alone, Finn is hard again too. Puck’s a fucking pro, so even drunk he manages to tie a knot in the condom on his first try. Patrick waits so he doesn’t accidentally kick him in the face, but once Puck gets up to drop the jizzy condom in the wastebasket beside Rachel’s desk, Patrick rolls onto his side to face Finn. 

“You can fuck me too.”

Finn’s face scrunches up. “Not that I don’t want to, but don’t you think you’ll be sore?”

“What’s it matter? I don’t have hockey anymore. We lost.”

Puck smirks, sitting beyond Finn to not get in the way. Gentlemanly, that. “If this is what happens when you lose you should lose more often.”

“I should put that as my Facebook status.” Sharpy would second it for sure, and Moon probably too, if he’s not currently arrested. Tazer might kill him for thinking a gangbang is worth a loss, but Patrick’s feeling pretty damn great right now.

“Uh...how about you wait until you’re sober to log into Facebook?”

Before Patrick can accuse Finn of being a buzzkill, his fingers are on him for the second time that night. This time he’s not fingering with intent to stretch Patrick out. It’s more like Finn’s playing with him, some really slutty playing. He’s feeling him out, seeing how Puck’s changed him. Each time Finn’s thumb drags over the sticky drying lube that dripped down to his balls when Puck poured too much Patrick shudders. And the rim of his hole is already sensitive, so Finn’s steady pressure on it is really doing things to his dick.

Finally, just when Patrick’s about to beg, or grab Rachel’s nearest microphone and stick that up his ass, Finn shucks on a condom and pushes inside. Patrick’s eyes close and his calves instinctively curl around Finn’s back. This is like being on the ice, he could just do this forever.

“Holy shit!”

Patrick hears the voice, but it takes him a second to connect that with why Finn’s stopped fucking him. Even once he gets it, he thinks it’s stupid. Spin the bottle proved pretty clearly that most of New Directions are either bi or allies comfortable in their sexuality. No one that they left in the basement will care that they’re fucking. But Finn’s stopped fucking him anyway. He’s not even inside him any more, instead sitting with a pillow over his erection.

“You swore!” Finn accuses, shocked.

Kurt gives his step-brother one of those I’m-seriously-unimpressed looks Patrick got earlier. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realise I was the one doing something outrageous!”

“You’re very uppity, bro,” Patrick informs him.

“You have hideous hair!”

In Patrick’s line of work, that’s a hilariously weak chirp. But he gets that it’s pretty strong for Kurt. Either way, maybe he can use it. “I’ll shave right now if you stop complaining. Won’t even wipe the lube out of my ass first.”

Kurt blushes, then closes the door. “We’ll be talking about this later Finn!” he shouts through the wood.

“So that was a huge mood killer,” Finn says glumly.

Patrick laughs for a second. Then he realises Finn is serious. In response Patrick rolls onto his stomach, then pulls himself up to hands and knees. Patrick arches his ass up until he’s pretty damn exposed, and imagines everyone in the room is looking. It’s hotter that way. “Mood _not_ killed, man. Fuck me.”

“Kurt killed my erection.”

“Then fingerfuck me, or stick your tongue in or something.” Patrick really doesn’t care what goes in, as long as something does. He’s not leaving this room until he gets fucked at least once more.

***

“How long did your party go on, man?” Seabs asks.

“What?” Patrick isn’t quite sure. He doesn’t remember a lot after the sex. He knows they went back downstairs. He knows he had more mixed drinks because Sam was complaining that ten different open bottles of juice was wasteful. He knows he woke up in all his clothes in Puck’s bed, sweaty as fuck due to a combination of Puck half on top of him and the curtains not pulled closed against the sun, with Finn smartly in a sleeping bag on the floor beside the bed on the side not touched by sun. Puck’s little sister was up when they finally went downstairs, and she knew the kind of cereal Finn wanted and then asked who the heck he was. Patrick had been forced to stammer something about New Directions before she lost interest. “I dunno. Left before sunrise, I think, because I didn’t realise I’d need to close the curtains so the sun wouldn’t murder me once I woke up.”

“So it wasn’t weekend long?”

“No. Not that I know of, anyway. Why? Was Rick The Stick’s?” Patrick doesn’t regret the choice he made. Going to the hockey misery party wouldn’t have resulted in sex, that’s for sure. But it’s always a bummer to hear you’ve missed out on truly epic events.

“No, we were home by dawn too. Just figured with the look of your club you only stopped drinking a few hours ago.” Seabs points his chin at where Tina and Mercedes and Santana are standing. All three of them are wearing sunglasses, like the florescent lighting is killing them.

“Well I didn’t. They mighta left me out for day two though.” Patrick frowns thinking about it. He knows he’s not any of theirs best friend forever, and that Puck and Finn would question it the first time he didn’t show up in a sex game, then move on completely, but he thought he was at least close enough to hang out with the whole gang. Hell, Mackie invites him to hang out for group shit, and Mackie would probably smile at his funeral.

“Go find out before you start pouting.” 

Patrick hesitates a second, but no, Seabs is right. He’s just gonna think about it and get progressively more pissy unless he gets to the bottom of things.

“I need to close my locker and it’s going to sound like a gunshot,” is the first thing Patrick hears Tina say.

“I’ve had the worst hangover since Saturday. And it’s Monday,” Mercedes replies flatly. Patrick wonders how early she stopped drinking to have already been hungover on Saturday. He knows he didn’t stop until it was Sunday in every time zone.

“I’ve been dry heaving all weekend. When my mother asked me what the sound was I said I was practicing bird calls.”

Patrick looks at Santana, eyebrows raised. He doesn’t buy that for a second. Santana’s been at all the athletic parties he’s been to. There’s no way she’s got a low tolerance.

Mike approaches from behind. “You guys, I can’t stop barfing.”

“Please don’t say barf.”

“I caught a whiff of hairspray and went _full_ Linda Blair in the girls washroom.”

Mike sighs. “I told my mom I had the flu, and she made me a traditional tea made out of panda hair.”

“Can we talk about anything else?”

They round the corner and practically run into another cluster of Glee kids. Every single one of them are also wearing sunglasses. Patrick’s starting to wonder if this is a prank. They’re all talking like they didn’t do anything on Sunday but feel like shit, which means there’s no reason for them to feel bad now, unless they’re faking it.

“I brought some bloody marys, yo,” Artie says with a grin, holding up a silver thermos the size of his thigh and a stack of Dixie paper cups.

“Are you kidding me,” Mercedes demands. “The last thing I want to do is drink.”

Artie reaches back behind his head and passes the paper cups to his girlfriend. At the same time Sam reaches out and spins the lid of the thermos off. “It’ll help your hangover. That’s what bloody marys are for. Hair of the dog that done bit your ass.”

Patrick doesn’t actually have that bad of a headache. Or one at all, really. But this is free alcohol he’s being offered. It’s basically anti-American to turn it down. Patrick wouldn’t want to be a terrorist.

Bloody Marys are fucking gross, Patrick thinks as he takes his first sip. He has to chug the rest of it so he doesn’t actually taste it. It’s like if vodka and ketchup and pepper had a baby. It’s better than no alcohol, but he’s pretty sure any other alcohol would be better than this.

Mercedes meets him between first and second period to let him have another gulp or two of Artie’s alcohol. Patrick happily takes it, although he thinks that it would be a little less obvious if they weren’t drinking out of paper cups.

Between second and third period Puck is the one to corner him. Literal cornering, and he does it in such a way that he gets the chance to grab Patrick’s ass with no one noticing. Patrick would applaud his skill, but that would draw unnecessary attention to them.

“Most of us are skipping third so we can perform a thing for Schue before the buzz wears off. Quinn won’t, she’s never skipped any class ever, and Sam has a test, but we’ll text them details so they can pick it up quick at lunch. Would Jonny skip?”

Patrick shakes his head emphatically. “No. I mean, he’d probably skip? But he can’t because he’d give us black eyes for being drunk at school.”

“Yeah, okay. Fuck him then.”

Normally Patrick wouldn’t agree, but Jonny really _is_ a buzzkill about intoxicants. The one time Patrick did MDMA caps, not even the sketchy MDMA-meth mix that E is, but straight up harmless MDMA powder, Jonny found out from Rick’s girlfriend’s Facebook page. He kicked him so hard it was like a muscle bruise that stuck around for weeks.

“So you gonna skip?”

“What do you think?”

Puck leads him to the auditorium. Most of the Glee club is already there, scattered through the soft seats. Mike is on stage, dancing for Tina, who calls out “welcome to the April Rhodes Civic Pavilion” when she sees them, then bursts into laughter. Yeah, happy drunks are awesome.

Lauren, Artie and Finn are the last in. Because Figgins is a cheap bastard and no one cares about the handicapped at this school they have to lift Artie up and haul him down the long flight of stairs, and then up onto the stage. It’s an impressive show of upper body strength. Patrick could kiss and bite Finn’s arms for that, except he’s not smashed enough to think that’s a smart idea. Together Lauren and Artie head into the wings. A minute later the stage is covered with red mood lighting. Patrick likes the look enough to mentally apologise to the AV Club. They exist for a reason, apparently. Even if a lot of them become rat bastard reporters.

Rachel, bossy captain even when she’s drunk as a skunk, stomps her foot a few times to get everyone’s attention. “So. We gather here today to discuss what we’ll be performing for the alcohol awareness assembly.”

“And to sing and dance while tipsy,” Mike says.

“That too!” Rachel slurs, pointing at Mike.

“Anyone got a song idea?”

“We should sing something slutty. Everyone always cheers when we sing slutty songs, even if they’ve slushied us like an hour earlier.”

Finn shakes his head at Mercedes. “It’s gotta be about alcohol.”

“Gin and Juice?” Patrick offers.

“With my mind on my money and my money on my mind,” Brittany and Santana belt out simultaneously.

“That song is so misogynistic.” Rachel complains.

Tina stops leaning on Mike and asks “does anyone want to get their dark cabaret on?”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“The Dresden Dolls have this song called My Alcoholic Friends. It’s really good.”

“Does-” Rachel stops to wipe her mouth with her wrist. “Does it fit Principal Figgins’ rules?”

“Fuck Figgins. We should do Blame It On The Alcohol,” Santana says.

Somehow ‘fuck authority’ is a good enough argument. Just like that it’s settled; they’re doing Blame it on the Alcohol. Patrick’s pretty damn fine with that. Jamie Foxx is no Kanye, but it’s still a good song.

Half the room starts bickering about who should get what lines, and what parts if any should be for the whole group. Mercedes is arguing for a solo stanza, and she’ll probably get it, since Rachel isn’t throwing her name in the hat. Mercedes would probably get it even if Rachel did. There’s no way Rachel Berry can pull off rap, not even blitzed and sloppy is she casual enough for it. Artie’s making his own case for a solo, which comes as a surprise to absolutely no one. Artie always wants more rap.

The other half starts to talk about staging. Lauren thinks they should all wear black, that the drama department should have a bunch of stuff in storage, and that she has an illegal copy of the key. Puck says if they’re breaking in they might as well pull out one of the white couches, since they hardly ever use big props, and they’ve definitely never used props bigger than bowler hats at an assembly. Mike and Brittany have opinions about who they think will still be capable of choreography while drunk, and maybe Finn and Patrick should just stay on the couch and do arm movements the whole time. Patrick should maybe be offended by that, but fuck it. It’s rude but it’s true.

When the end of third period bell rings, they’ve got things almost entirely figured out. Jonny and Quinn and Sam catch up as quickly as Puck predicted they would, and then Brittany is sent to go get Mr Schue. If she slips up and says something drunky to him, he’ll just write it off as her normal weird inanity. Everyone else is capable of sober-face.

The song starts with Artie rolling across the stage singing “blame it on the Goose, got you feelin’ loose, blame it on the Patron, got you in the zone,” as the rest of them sigh in unison. Puck picks it up at the third stanza, then the rest of them double up on the song a few lyrics later. The solo passes to Mercedes, who walks between Tina and Puck and Brittany and Jonny dancing coupled on the risers, and Santana and Mike in front of them. They’re all really fucking smokin’ it, about ten thousand times better than any drunk Rockband karaoke Patrick’s ever done at a party.

Mr Schue must agree, because as they come to an end, half of them in a vaguely triangle shape in front of the risers, the rest of the group scattered in front of the two couches, he claps. “Well done you guys! I mean you always bring it with the singing and the dancing, but what I was really impressed with this time was your acting. I truly thought that some of you were drunk.”

“Well, we take our craft serious,” Artie says. Patrick barely stops himself from cracking up. He can see Mercedes’ hand clenched around the handle of Artie’s chair as she tries to hold herself back too.

“The problem is that that song is great, but it kind of glorifies drinking, don’t you think? I mean we’re supposed to be singing about the dangers of alcohol for this assembly.”

“Well good luck finding a song that does that,” Mercedes says sarcastically.

“Mr Schue?” Rachel starts, walking forward from the stage right couch. “First of all, that vest is very cute. You are all kinds of awesome.” She takes Mike’s hand and continues. “But second, maybe there’s really no songs about the dangers of drinking because there’s really none, as long as you have a proper designated driver.”

Patrick would shout out ‘preach’, but Jonny’s within kicking distance. Also, just then Rachel sticks her hand up Mike’s shirt and mutters something about his abs, making Tina storm over from the other side of the line and tow him away. Patrick doesn’t really want to get involved in that potential mess.

“Rachel, yes, driving drunk is dangerous. But have you guys ever heard of alcohol poisoning? It kills about four hundred people every year.”

Patrick can feel Jonny staring at him, which is annoying as fuck. Thankfully Captain Serious gets distracted when Santana starts to cry. She was totally a freaking out drunk at Rachel’s party too, and Patrick’s seen it in the past before. One time she threw her shoe at Azimio. Patrick’s happy he’s not her boyfriend. Or girlfriend, which is what she’d rather have, he’s pretty sure. Too high maintenance.

“Santana, are you crying?”

“I’m okay, I’m okay.”

Brittany pulls her in close, which kind of proves Patrick’s ‘she’d rather everyone was a girl’ theory.

“You’re such a hypocrite,” Quinn accuses. “You drink. Most adults do.”

“Well I may have a beer every now and then, but I don’t get drunk.”

“We’re just saying this is a waste of time. We’re totally aware of alcohol. We see adults drinking it and having fun. Every commercial during NASCAR is for beer...”

See, and that’s why Patrick’s fooling around with Puck, not Jonny. Puck knows shit about life. And there’s the other part too, where Puck’s actually bi, and therefore available. But mostly Puck is chill and exciting at the same time.

Mr Schuester holds his hands up in a stopping motion. “Enough guys. Tomorrow come with your thinking caps on, because we’re going to spend the entire day brainstorming ideas for songs to sing at this assembly.”

“Tomorrow I’ll bring the vodka,” Tina whispers in his ear. Patrick nods even though she’s not looking at him, busy whispering the same thing to Sam, starting up a chain of whispering. Patrick doesn’t pass the message on to Jonny. He won’t wanna know.

***

Patrick crosses his arms, then uncrosses them. Then he crams his hands in his pockets. Then he takes them out. They’ve got about ten minutes before they’re performing for the school, and Patrick doesn’t know what to do with himself. He’s performed in front of people before, obviously, but this has a different feel to it. Not only is the crowd much bigger than any crowd that’s ever watched the Cutters, they’re also ninety five percent hostile. You have to care about hockey to watch a game, everyone in the bleachers is being forced to be here. He can only imagine what Bobbsie and Mackie will be saying fifteen minutes from now.

Tazer’s in the corner giving Finn a last minute pep talk about dancing in front of the whole school. Unless it’s Finn pepping Tazer about singing enthusiastically in front of the whole school. Patrick would watch them out-Captain each other out of pure fascination, but he doesn’t want them to turn on him. He doesn’t want to be Captained at, he wants to be listening to a ramp up playlist. It would make him feel a lot better. Unfortunately, while he took the time to create one last night, and upload it to his iPod, he forgot to charge the damn thing, and it ran out on the jog to school.

Even though Lauren’s told all of them to touch the rigged up curtain as infrequently as possible, because she knows exactly how much care was taken setting it up, Brittany sticks her head out to look at the audience. She manages to extract herself without everything falling down, then starts pacing. “You guys, I’m really nervous. Kesha’s been a culture icon for weeks and I really want to do her music justice.”

“We haven’t had enough rehearsal,” Sam says.

“Or any at all,” Mercedes points out. 

It’s not _quite_ true. About three quarters of them met at Finn’s last night for a kind of brainstorming/choreographing/eating Kurt’s snacks thing. But Mike and Brittany had had to work with them in smaller groups because the living room wasn’t all that big, and they haven’t actually run through it on the gymnasium floor. It’s the difference between street hockey and hockey on the ice, Patrick would guess. The same basics, but details that can easily trip you up.

“Never fear, teammates,” Rachel says as she walks to where almost everyone is together. Finn’s keeping Tazer well distracted, and Mike and Tina are having a quick make out session to calm the nerves, but the rest of them are in a semi-huddle to stay the fuck away from the rickety contraption holding up the curtains. Rachel’s got alcohol, unsurprisingly. Everyone’s been chipping in to keep the binge going all week, but this is by far the least subtle. It’s a sick looking gallon container of swamp water. Fuck knows where she even pulled it out of. It’s an ugly shade of blue, so there’s gotta be at least a bit of Sourpuss in it. Patrick doesn’t remember drinking Sourpuss, but he’s hazy on a lot of the details, so it’s possible he drank the whole handle himself. 

“Now it’s a Broadway tradition for nervous performers to take a shot of whiskey before going on to calm their nerves and to mask the stench of bad dental hygiene. In that tradition I’ve mixed us a playful showbiz cocktail of what was left in my dads’ liquor cabinet. There’s some brandy and vermouth and port wine and scotch in here, and also a little bit of koolaid and some crumbled up Oreos.”

By the time she’s done frantically rambling Artie’s got half a dozen red cups poured. Seriously unsubtle as fuck. If Jonny wasn’t in Tazer-mode they’d all be fucked.

Santana’s the first to take a sip. She winces, which isn’t a good sign. “Oh my God. This tastes like cough syrup.”

Rachel looks into her cup. “There’s also cough syrup in here.”

“Cheers!” Someone says. Everyone with a cup repeats the word, and they all take their first gulp.

Patrick’s not drunk by the time they get introduced by Principal Figgins’ facepalm worthy “and now performing the hit single Tik and also Tok, by rapper Key dollar sign Ha, the New Directions.” After a solid week of daytime drinking, his tolerance is a bit higher than two cups of swamp water. He is, however, a little nauseous, because scotch and wine and flakes of Oreo icing do not belong in the same cup. There’s a distinct lack of applause, even his friends holding back from it as Figgins walks off, microphone screeching. Patrick hopes it’s because no one wants to cheer Figgins, not because no one wants to watch this. 

They’re all facing the wall as the curtain opens. Patrick’s watching out of the corner of his eye, as best as he can without actually turning his head back and risking the wrath of one of half a dozen perfectionists in this group. Lauren winces as the fabric shifts, which is fair, Patrick thinks. She’s probably right that metal rigging shouldn’t be orange with rust. 

There’s a cheer by the time Brittany gets to ‘hit this city’, and thank fuck for that. Patrick doesn’t handle apathy well. He’s in the back row, and actually remembers almost all of the choreography Mike set up -it’s pretty easy when you think of the sequences as plays- so he knows to not turn around when the first row does, instead wait until ‘I’m talkin’ pedicure...’. Then it’s arm pumping as the girls do robotic body rolls. Patrick doesn’t even have to move his legs until the chorus.

The chorus is busy as fuck. Everyone’s back in a rectangle facing the right side of the platform, doing a fast sort of skipping in place movement. It’s also where the guys voices come in. The thirteen of them are still backup for Brittany, like they will be the whole song, but that doesn’t change the fact that Patrick has to dance _and_ sing the right lyrics. If anything it’s more complicated, since he has to worry about singing too loud and drowning her out. 

And then they turn back to the audience, who at least at this point are genuinely into it. Thank God for small miracles. But Patrick can’t spend more than a second mentally smiling, because he’s gotta punch the air twice with his left arm, then his right, and then there’s other arm movements. And then they all basically fall apart and start doing their own thing, and it’s possible the cough syrup is getting to Patrick, because that seems more funny than like a disaster.

“Forward,” Mike hisses. He’s unmicced because his voice is horrible, which means he’s just loud enough for everyone on stage to hear.

The cue helps them pick it up again, and for a full minute they’re doing it right. They make it through the bridge of Tik-Tok, the weird almost talking part that happens before they repeat the chorus the fifth time. Patrick’s pretty proud of all his nimbleness dropping to the floor and getting back up, at least until Brittany sings “Now the party don’t start til I walk in”, and falls into perfect splits. Then he’s just shocked that it’s sexy. Patrick thinks it’s sexy, and he’s pretty fucking gay, so he can only imagine that Seabs and Duncs and the rest of the student population are pretty turned on. Clearly this is how the Britney Spears assembly turned into a sex riot.

It’s another chorus, which means facing forward, moving fast. These arm movements are different than the last four sets, and Patrick’s not positive he’s getting them all right, but to be fair, probably no one is except Mike and the three ex-cheerleaders. You don’t stay on the Cheerios long, you don’t stay under _Sylvester_ long unless you can memorise choreography instantly. It’s not all arm movements either, there’s a lot of bowing and twisting. Basically from about four feet up the stage is a blur of hair. Fuck, the school better applaud the shit out of them when they’re done, they could be giving themselves whiplash.

Towards the end of the chorus Brittany starts to stagger around the stage. Patrick’s surprised that one of the top dancers is fucking it up, but he can’t stop to offer any sage advice, he’s just gotta keep on flailing his head and moving his feet. If they all lose direction like that Mike will hiss another command to lasso them in.

And then it happens. They sing the first “oh oh woah oh,” and then Brittany grabs Rachel from the side and pukes grey-blue liquid all over Rachel’s face and shoulder.

The reactions are many. The audience instantly goes silent. Brittany apologetically says ‘oh my God’ as Rachel runs off the platform. Santana staggers towards the other side of the stage, hands both covering her mouth before a second before she sympathy-pukes. Since she’s doing it through her fingers it sprays harder, in an arc.

“Everybody drink responsibly,” Brittany says into the silence. 

Patrick holds it in until they get offstage into the girls dressing room. Barely. The split second second the entire school’s eyes aren’t on him he half collapses with laughter, only palms braced on his knees keeping him from literally rolling on the floor laughing.

“You think that’s funny?”

“I mean, gross funny, but-” Yeah, that’s it for coherency. Patrick breaks into laughter again, clutching at the nearest person’s hem like a lifeline.

“You’re drunk,” Jonny accuses. He doesn’t sound very happy about it.

“Everyone’s drunk,” Patrick points out, reasonably.

“Throwing us under the bus,” Santana bitches. She’s already at the row of sinks, stripping off her shirts to clean up. The top one is pretty ruined with puke, but the undershirt is worth scrubbing to wear later. Her real problem are the spots of liquid blue in her hair. She’ll have to bend awkwardly to get her hair under the sink faucet. That or wait until everyone else fucks off and have a shower.

“Like it wasn’t obvious Santana,” Quinn snaps.

“ _You’re_ drunk,” Jonny stresses, making it clear he doesn’t give a good goddamn what anyone else is.

“Um. Yes.” He can’t really deny it, he’s already failed at deflection. He’s not super drunk, not like house party trashed, but that qualification won’t make things better. He can at least stand up and straighten his multiple layers and try not to look like a complete useless wreck.

“Last time you made this kind of spectacle, Lloyd didn’t let you play a game.”

“We’re off-season.”

Patrick’s expecting disappointed scowl, or more shouting. He’s not expecting Jonny to punch him in the face. Patrick’s not a wuss, but he staggers at the contact. It really came out of nowhere, he didn’t have time to brace himself.

 _Then_ comes the scowl, because Jonny doesn’t do Captaining by halves. “What if he doesn’t let teenage drunko try out next year? There goes your entire fucking college plan, fucking idiot!”

Patrick doubts it. “I don’t think Lloyd would be that much of a dick.”

“And you’re willing to risk the next fifteen years of your life on that guess? So what’s gonna stop you? Do I have to crack your jaw so you can’t suck a cooler?”

“If you break his jaw he’ll have a liquid diet. He might drink more.”

“Not helping!” Patrick hisses at Puck. He gets that the guy doesn’t like being nagged at, but this is second degree nagging for him at best, and Patrick’s the one that’s going to have to eat shit to get Jonny to calm down. 

Any kind of angry response Jonny might have is put on hold by the change room door opening. Patrick’s expecting any number of people that would make this situation worse, from Rachel having a full blown panic attack -he’s not even sure where she is right now, maybe running home or calling a cab- to half the Titans to add insult to injury by slushieing them, to Figgins suspending them for drinking during school hours. It’s almost a relief when Mr Schuester’s the one walking in.

“We need to talk about what in the hell just happened.”

“Um, Brittany just hurled all over Rachel like it was a lesbian fetish porn film?” Tina replies. 

Patrick can’t help himself. He bursts into laughter. Hard, stomach paining, tears leaking laughter. He’s not the only one in the room to do it; Mike in particular is almost hiccuping his amusement, and Mercedes has her hands over her face. The shared humour won’t take him off Jonny’s hook, but stops him from being a target for Schue.

“Guys, that is so inappropriate that I can’t- Santana, why are you not wearing a shirt?”

“You saw the contagious vomiting, right?” she asks, head in the sink, bra bright red against her copper back.

He shakes his head. “I can’t be in this room if you’re not all dressed.”

“So you gonna wait out there to yell at us?”

“No. On second thought, I really don’t want to talk about this today. I’m too frustrated with your continual inability to act professionally. But you better believe we’ll be talking tomorrow during practice.”

Patrick sighs in relief as their coach leaves. One authority down, about a dozen left to go. A dozen that include Erica and Jackie, who definitely saw every moment of that from the bleachers. He’ll have to lie pretty hard to make them think Brittany and Santana just had the stomach flu from making out with the same guy. Well, lie hard to sell the stomach flu part, not the cheating part. No one in the school really thinks the Cheerio is faithful to Artie. But if Patrick can sell his sisters his slight alcoholism won’t get back to his parents -unless Jonny rats him out- and the less they know, the better.

***

Patrick sighs as he trudges into the choir room and takes a seat beside Quinn. The seat on his other side is open, if Jonny wants it. If he doesn’t, whatever. By this point in the day Patrick no longer cares about anything. He’s tired, and it’s like a weighted blanket on top of him, making him totally apathetic to everything that’s happened today.

He’d like to be able to say his exhaustion is for a good cause, more productive than the newb drinkers around him who are coming down from a several day bender, but he can’t. He doesn’t know. He won’t know, until Jonny comes in the room, if he even does, and makes his thoughts clear by where he chooses to sit. Worst case scenario Jonny blows off Glee altogether. 

It was surprisingly easy to sell his sisters a lie. Not stomach flu, that didn’t work. Like Erica said, ‘if that was food-puke I’m America’s next top model’. For his second try he went with that Santana and Brittany and Quinn have been drinking ever since their refusal to climb into Sylvester’s human cannon made them lose cheerleading’s Regionals. It sold easily, apparently realistic. Patrick hasn’t noticed, but apparently approximately half the Cheerios have been losing their shit without the iron fist of Sylvester telling them what to wear and do and think. 

After that conversation was over the rest of the night was pretty normal; homework, dinner, tv, video games, bed. Then, at twelve minutes after three his phone had rung, waking him up. Patrick had scrambled for it, half in fear for his life if he woke up Jessica in the middle of the night. He’d told Puck and Finn to just text if they were doing the late night booty call thing, but clearly they’d forgotten. Only it had been Jonny, disturbingly wide awake for a guy who insisted on eight full hours. He’d said they needed to talk, and Patrick had told him to go ahead, figuring he could fall back asleep while Jonny was lecturing. Of course that wasn’t good enough for Jonny, who demanded he come outside, fully dressed.

Patrick had, because outright refusing Jonny isn’t something he really does. Instead of being directed to crawl into the passenger seat that he frequents so often it practically has his assprint, Jonny had handed him a hockey stick. Over the next two hours they’d played street hockey, rough style, without pads or even garbage cans as goals, so when someone scored beyond the signifying lamp post, the other had to bolt down the street after the orange ball. The only conversation they had was about Patrick’s alcoholism. Every time he’d tried to pass it off as a joke, or Jonny being a worrywort, they’d stopped talking for a few minutes, try to get a few goals and then Jonny would bring it up again. By dawn Jonny had him admitting that yeah, it was a bit much, he was acting a bit too stupid.

The thing is, while he implied he’d stop, for sure meaning it at five am, and maybe even meaning it now, Patrick never actually said he was sorry. Then this morning Sylvester put Schuester’s recorded drunk dial on the intercom. All the Cutters thought it was hilarious and spent the better part of the lunch hour talking about their best drunk conversations and Jonny spent the whole time between Rick’s girlfriend and Shawzy, scowling each time Patrick had something to contribute. This afternoon Principal Figgins called the whole glee club into his office at once and congratulated them on a good stay sober skit, they were really believable, and then gave them coupons for frozen yoghurt. Basically the entire day has been about the world undermining Jonny’s opinions, and while ninety five percent of Patrick just wants to go home and nap, that other five percent’s worried about how much of a fit Jonny’s gonna throw. Jonny only ever joined New Directions to keep Patrick uncorrupted and now that they have -ignoring the fact that Patrick would have managed the same sort of thing all by himself anyway- he’s got no reason to keep on coming.

Everyone’s chattering, but Patrick doesn’t listen. Zoning out is almost like napping. He would really like to nap. Of all the things in the world he could have Patrick just wants a nap, and Jonny to not be pissy with him -or at least not disappointed-pissy, a different shade of it could be funny-, and New Directions to win Regionals and Nationals to make up for the Cutters sucking, and Jonny to be spontaneously gay, and everyone in the Westboro church to be dead and for them to bring black cherry vanilla Coke back. And blowjobs on the list, somewhere. Maybe with the Jonny thing, if that came true. And to make it onto an NHL team, of course. That one goes without saying.

Quinn taps him on the leg, and with extreme reluctance Patrick opens his eyes. Then he grins and nudges her leg with his in thanks, because Jonny’s walking in. She’s pretty smart, for all that she’s made crap choices.

“About lunch,” Patrick starts once Jonny’s sitting. He doesn’t really want to have this conversation, but Jonny actually showed up, and he actually sat beside him, so Patrick probably owes him this.

“Shut up.”

“I just wanted-”

“Everyone brags. They would have busted your balls if you hadn’t. So shut up.”

Patrick pulls his eyelids open all the way and twists to look at him. Jonny seems to actually mean it. In the span of four hours he went from _everyone on this team is a bag of dicks and you’re the most irresponsible dick of them all_ to _I don’t care_ , and Patrick doesn’t get it, but it works in his favour so he’s sure as hell not going to question it.

The closing of that particular book of drama is good timing though, because less than a minute later Schue walks in from the right hand door, all black cardigan and disapproving expression.

“Alright guys. While I’m happy things worked out at the assembly, I never wanna see you guys pull anything like that again. Drinking while performing is unprofessional. Drinking while at school is just stupid. And most importantly, any of you guys drinking at all is illegal.”

Patrick doesn’t snort because there’s a fifty-fifty chance between Jonny rabbit punching him in the thigh, and Jonny throttling him. But argument three is really dumb, in his book. If society didn’t want teenagers to illegally drink they’d change the legal drinking age to sixteen.

Quinn speaks up. “There’s a fair amount of pot calling the kettle black right now.”

“That is so racist,” Brittany whispers at Artie. Once again Patrick refrains from making a sound. If he can just get out of this lecture alive the whole situation should be wrapped up. Contributing to Brittany being distracting won’t help.

“I couldn’t agree more. Which is why I’m going to stop drinking. Not even a beer at the end of the night to take the edge off.”

“But if you don’t drink, what will you have to live for?”

“I have plenty in my life without beer.”

“Like what, exactly,” Mercedes asks quietly. She’s not being a bitch, as far as Patrick knows. Mr Schue’s home life just sorta sucks.

“The point is, I’m going to stop. And I hope you guys do too.”

“Isn’t that kind of unrealistic?” Tina asks.

“Yeah. Honestly, I think it is. Which is why I’m only going to ask you to do it until after Nationals.” He walks towards his desk and picks up a folder of papers. Patrick wonders if they’re going to segue that easily into songs for Regionals, and brainstorming for Nationals after that, because the arts don’t believe in jinxing. But when Schue opens his mouth again it’s still about alcohol. “Consider yourselves like prize fighters, getting ready for a heavyweight battle.” He stops directly in front of them, and removes the blue sheets from the folder. “Now, these are pledge forms, and I want you guys to sign them.”

Patrick takes his when it’s given. He took the Cutters one too, when that was handed out, and no doubt the various football players and cheerleaders have seen their own versions. He’ll sign it like a good boy, and then do whatever he wants. Even if he hasn’t decided what that is.

Puck, on the other hand, has trouble even pretending to cede to authority. “And what if we fall off the wagon again?”

“Look in the top right corner of your form. That’s my cell phone number.”

“Yes!” Sam whisper-cheers, and for the fiftieth time Patrick wonders what is _up_ with that kid.

“Part of your pledge is that if you do slip up, no matter where you are, or what time of the night it is, I want you to call me to drive you home. We got lucky this time, that the only consequences of your drinking was some ill timed vomiting. None of us want to see any of you guys get hurt.”

“Cool beans, Mr Schue. I’ll sign it,” Santana says. Patrick wonders about that. Yes, they’re all going to _sign_ it, obviously. But she’s saying it like she might actually call him the next time she’s hammered. And Schue’s offering like he seriously wouldn’t mind a drunk pickup. Even Lloyd, as great as he is about sharing his after school hours with the team, has never offered to cart Rick the Stick home when he’s so drunk he’s pissed his pants.

“Me too. Alcohol’s done nothing for my songwriting.” Rachel agrees. Patrick really hopes she gets off that idea soon. They’re singing My Chem for Regionals, not whatever crap she comes up with. Finn said her last song was an ode to her headband.

“What about after we win Nationals?” Finn asks.

As he and Jonny wince, because jesus fuck, a football player should know better than to jinx their win like that, Mr Schuester grins. “I’m buying the sparkling cider.”

And that’s that, apparently.

***

“Alright folks,” Schue says loudly as he walks in the room and puts his leather man purse thing on the piano bench. “Regionals is in a week, and it’s time to get deep into our setlist.”

Patrick agrees. Even if the rumor is true and Brittany is pregnant, her stomach is completely flat now. Patrick’s never observed a pregnant girl but he’s pretty sure she won’t swell to full fledged baby bump in the span of two weeks. Anyway, New Directions made Regionals work when Quinn was nine months pregnant last year. It shouldn’t affect their performance. What might is not having their choreography down pat, or the lyrics fully memorised. Jonny is obviously just as interested in getting on with their strategy as Patrick is. He leans forward anticipatorily, so enthusiastically the chair shifts.

Schue takes a breath to say something else, then slows to a halt in the middle of the room, frowning. “Artie, you okay?”

Artie’s probably not okay. If the Brittany thing is true, he’s either a sixteen year old dad, or has solid proof that Brittany’s still having sex with other guys, not just Santana.

“My life is over. How am I supposed to support a baby? How could you not tell me about this?”

Mr Schue looks from Artie to Brittany beside him. Not that they look very close, they both have strong personal bubbles of misery. “Wait. Brittany, are you pregnant?”

“It wasn’t me,” Puck says quickly.

Finn backs him up. “No, it wasn’t him.”

Silence fills the room for a second, like the eye of a storm, and then Patrick can practically see the gossip tornado head north to hover over Finn.

“How would you know?”

“Yeah, you should be the first one accusing Puck of using his super sperm.”

Finn is flailing. His mouth is open, but it’s just for show, no words are coming out. Not even a useless ‘um’ or ‘nah’. When it becomes obvious that Finn’s not going to manage Puck takes over. “This won’t leave Glee. No Cheerios, no AV Club, no debate club,” he says, pointing to each member in turn.

“Dude, what did Finn _do_?”

“Did he put a GPS chip under your skin so he knows you haven’t been with Brittany?” Sam asks. It’s easy to forget Sam is a sci-fi nerd until he quotes something. Or starts speaking Navi.

“What’s Finn been doing? Me.”

Santana’s the first to get it. She bursts into uproarious laughter. 

Rachel’s next. “First Blaine, now Finn. Everyone I love turns gay. I could write a song about this!” 

Then the reactions start pouring in, and a lot of them are pissed at Finn for not coming out to help Kurt. Even Brittany seems angry, and Patrick didn’t know she could do that. It doesn’t seem fair, since they’re both closeted for the same reason he is.

“And me.”

It just slips out, and there’s nearly an audible ripple in the air as every head turns as one to him.

“And you...how?”

“Puck’s been cheating on Finn with you?”

“Or Finn’s been cheating on-”

“Neither.” In for a penny in for a fucking benjamin, right? “We kinda do stuff all three of us.”

Sam whistles lowly. Santana’s laughing again. Mike’s whispering in Tina’s ear. Rachel’s looking at both of her exes speculatively, like she’s three seconds and a private room away from asking for a show. Except none of it matters, because Jonny’s got this expression on his face that Patrick’s never seen before. Patrick would like for it to be good, but he can’t imagine it is. He starts counting seconds in his head, waiting for Jonny to crack and say what he’s thinking.

Patrick doesn’t even make it to ten. “You’re fucking two guys?”

“Language!” reminds Schue, the first thing he’s said in minutes. 

Jonny, ever a listener to authority, repeats himself with toned down language. But given that it’s combined with a louder voice and standing up it doesn’t seem any less charged. “You’re sleeping with two guys? And everyone knows?”

‘Only until you decide you want me’ is something Patrick can’t say. Not when Jonny’s looking at him like that, and not when the words Captain Tazer’s shouting at him make Patrick see the problem. “None of the recruiting coaches will ask. I’ll keep it totally quiet in college, pretend to fool around with girls, and no coach will travel to Lima fucking Ohio to ask if I had male fuck buddies. I can’t see Muller doing that, can you?”

For a few seconds Patrick thinks it’s all going to be fine, that he hasn’t ruined his hockey career in Tazer’s eyes and thus ruined the foundation of their friendship. But then Jonny yanks on his backpack. His storm out is slowed because the arm strap is caught under the leg of the chair from when he shifted it forward. It’s not too much of an impediment, but Patrick has five, maybe ten extra seconds to say something to fix this. He’s just got to think of something.

Except Jonny doesn’t just move the chair. He puts his hand on the nasty, probably gummy underside and flings the chair to the side. Most of the group watches Puck squawk and dive to the floor out of the trajectory of the oncoming chair. Patrick watches Jonny leave.

Everyone bursts into chatter. _he threw a fucking chair at me_ from Puck, and _why didn’t I leave the cameras_ from Lauren and _just wanky_ from Santana. Mr Schue doesn’t even try to make them shut up, because he definitely probably shouldn’t be talking to his students about their sex lives.

Rachel weaves her fingers together and puts them on her ugly skirt. “I suppose we should have realised Patrick was the open-minded exception that proves the goon rule.”

There’s a leap of logic there that Patrick doesn’t get. “What?”

“Jonny being homophobic. We should-”

“He’s not.”

Sam crosses his arms, still angled towards him, even though the show’s over. “He threw a chair at Puck after he found out you were banging. Yeah he is dude.”

“That was an accident.” That was probably not an accident, but Patrick understands venting of rage. Shit happens.

“Even if it was, it’s still homophobic having you grovelling and apologising for what you like.”

“He’s not homophobic, he’s realistic. My groveling-” he makes quotation marks, “was realistic. Yes there are probably gay people in hockey. No, no one in the NHL is out. No one in the NHL will ever be out. Malkin and Crosby might blow each other until the day they die, Jagr and Lemieux might have been all over each other post game, but it doesn’t matter. It’s like the military. You don’t talk about it, and you make sure you aren’t caught. Jonny cares about me playing, and what I did five minutes ago was a kick to the teeth of my future. I just forgot for a minute because I’m fucking stupid.” Patrick picked momentary solidarity with the guys he’s sleeping with over years long friendship extending into the distant future with Jonny. Apparently every rom-com ever and his dad’s The Talk advice were right; sex does make you a moron.

“Patrick life sucks, sucks to be Patrick, sure. But I’m about to be a dad!”

Patrick can’t really spare sympathy for Artie and his outburst. But it does make him feel a little better that he’s not the only one in the room looking at his life falling apart in his hands. It’s nasty, but true.

“Can I just say the obvious?” Lauren continues without waiting for permission. “You don’t have to do this, Brittany. Just because Catholic Barbie over there had hers, doesn’t mean you have to have a baby.”

“But the stork’s already made it’s nest on top of my garage. I can’t just tell it to go away.”

A room full of raised eyebrows, but Finn’s the one to speak up. “Stork?”

“Yes, the stork. It’s been there for a few days, since the last time me and Artie did it. I’m not stupid, I know what happens next.”

Quinn sighs. “Brit, babies don’t come from storks. Trust me, I know.”

“I’m not a dad. Thank you Jesus. Thank you _God_ , I’m not a dad.” Artie raises his gloved hand towards the sky.

“Can we get back to the important part of today’s revelations? Puckerman’s dated every girl in this room-”

“He dated you?” Sam asks Mercedes.

“Yeah, when I was a Cheerio. So he’s seven for seven, and now he’s moved on to the guys.”

“He didn’t date me,” Tina protests.

“No, I agree with Aretha. I just can’t get over it. Zizes’ fat ass made him gay. That’s high-larious.”

“Santana!”

Patrick’s expecting Lauren to grab Santana by the hair and kick her ass like she did last month. Frankly, in the small, bloodthirsty enforcer part of his soul, he thinks it would be a welcome distraction. Instead Lauren just smirks. “What we had was a business transaction. A bag of pretzels each day he gets to date the school’s hottest badass. He liked guys before I ever met him. And guess who was with him before me?”

“Guys, this is stupid. You can’t just turn someone gay.”

“And I’m bi, so it’s not like Lauren isn’t sexy or Santana isn’t good in bed. I just like Finn better.”

A blush unfurls on Finn’s face, and Puck smiles at it. Patrick doesn’t. They’re good guys, and they’re good lays, but they don’t trigger adorable for him. Only one person does, as much as he would hate to be associated with the word adorable, and Patrick just lost that person forever.

All of a sudden he can’t be here. Good for them, being out and proud and basically supported, sarcasm aside. None of that is available for him, and Patrick just needs five minutes or an hour or a month to say _fuck every possible thing_ before he gets back into the ring.

“Yeah. I’m done. I can’t- Yeah. Done.” Patrick stands up and grabs his shit and walks out. No one follows him, just like no one followed Jonny. New Directions appreciate a good storm out, apparently.

***

Patrick hesitates before putting his unneeded textbooks in his locker. He needs to decide what he’s doing in the next hour by the time he closes the metal door. All his options are in opposite directions, and standing in the middle of the hallway for no reason only makes him look like an idiot. If the choice is difficult, well, he’s hot, he probably looks good unpacking and repacking his school backpack in slow motion.

The first option is going home. He could ignore the world and start his homework earlier than he normally would. Patrick’s grades aren’t that crap, but there’s always room to make them even less crap. The actual highlighting definitions in his notes part doesn’t sound too great, but sweatpants and a family sized bag of Lays and a locked door and a general fuck you to humanity does.

Another option is going to the rink. There should be at least a few people there. Just because the season’s over doesn’t mean Lloyd stops giving his team the opportunity for ice. He’s got his gear on him, because he never doesn’t have his second backpack. If he makes a big deal about putting a mouthguard in he won’t have to talk to anyone.

Really, he can go do anything, anywhere. Patrick’s not a one track sadsack, he can make friends that don’t do hockey. Or sing, for that matter. Which leads him to his fourth option. He can show up for Glee practice.

He really should go to Glee practice. Regionals is at the end of next week. The team player in Patrick is screaming at him to show up. Even if they made it through Sectionals just fine without him, they’ve acclimatized to him now. He’s part of this.

At the same time, part of him wants to bail. A large part. Patrick’s avoided everyone as much as possible, so he’s got no idea if everyone not Puck and Finn hate him for Puck and Finn. And he honestly doesn’t know what’s worse; if Jonny doesn’t show up, or if he does. 

In the end he decides to go to Glee. Quitting is basically the shittiest, lamest thing a person can do. If it’s super crazy he can depart after Regionals, but he’s a part of this.

Patrick walks in just as Schue’s writing the word sexy on the whiteboard. Instead of the normal scattering among the three rows of seats, everyone’s all over the place; by the band and at the piano. Except Jonny, who isn’t in the room at all. That hurts, but who knows, it might have hurt more to see him and see the contempt in his eyes.

Santana says something appropriately cutting about Rachel not being able to pull off sexy. Schuester replies without telling her off, which is all but confirmation that Rachel would be an albatross around their necks if sex appeal was a factor. “No, this isn’t about Regionals. I’m less worried about that right now and more worried about the fact that it’s become clear to me that some of you have been lacking when it comes to understanding the…the, uh…the intricacies of adult relationships.”

Amid the laughter Schue continues, stumbles over the suggestion that they spend the week ‘educating themselves about some of these intricacies’. It seems like a waste of a week to Patrick, but what does he know? Last year New Directions won Sectionals after finding out their playbook had been hijacked and developing a new three song routine in the dressing room. Maybe if they have too long to think they start to overcomplicate things. Every team has its fatal flaw, after all.

Another few stammered sentences and a second adult comes in. A woman. She’s hot, objectively speaking. Mercedes calls her the salad lady under her breath. Patrick’s not sure what that’s about, but then she starts a lecture about sex and he’s a bit distracted. Especially when she starts calling people out. Finn deserves the eye roll at being called out on thinking he got his girlfriend pregnant by jizzing into a hot tub, but Patrick doesn’t want to hear his own name. _Is it true you thought you couldn’t have your future career and be gay?_ That’ll suck because she’ll think it’s bullshit and he’ll have to explain how in every other career it is bullshit, but for his it’s really true.

Luckily she doesn’t. She segues into Joan Jett’s Do You Wanna Touch Me, and for a few minutes his brain shuts up. It’s not the same place Patrick goes to when he hits his stride on the ice but it’s similar. It’s in the same neighbourhood. It’s a nice place to be when the universe sucks.

***

“Patrick! Phone!”

Patrick’s eyes dart around the room for a minute like that’ll tell him what’s going on. Then he gets off his bed and heads for the kitchen to grab the old white phone mounted to the wall. Well, technically it’s not on the wall, it’s being held out to him by his dad once he enters, but still.

“Hello?” It’s more of a question than a greeting, because what the hell?

“Hey man,” Seabs says. “So a bunch of us are gonna go watch a movie. You gonna come?”

“Why’d you call me on this number?” As far as Patrick knows none of his friends even knows the house number. Seabs would have had to have looked it up in the phone book.

“Because you’ve been avoiding everyone. Like I haven’t even seen you in the cafeteria, what the fuck, are you eating in the bathroom with your legs drawn up? And I figured you might screen me like a bitch. If I reroute through your parents you don’t have the option.”

“I wouldn’t have.” Probably. He didn’t skate yesterday or today because he’s been trying to give Jonny his space. That just sort of accidentally means everyone else is cut out too.

“Well I guess we’ll never know.”

“What movie?” He asks because his problem’s not with Seabs. It’s not even really with Jonny. He’d talk to Jonny in a flat second if he thought Jonny would talk back. So if Seabs wants to talk about new releases, whatever, he can do that.

“I dunno. Insidious, maybe? The trailer looked badass.”

“Dude, I hate possession movies.”

“Oh Kaner, you sad sad true believer. What’re we gonna do with you?” Patrick can practically hear Seabs theatrically shake his head. He doesn’t really get Catholicism. “Arthur then, or Hanna. Who doesn’t like weird teenage girls kicking ass?”

“Is Jonny coming?”

“Is that what your deal is? I don’t care if you’ve been fighting over solos or some shit. You’re both Cutters and this is a solidarity movie. I didn’t call you to invite you, I called you to tell you you’re coming.”

“Fine. Just lemme ask my dad.” He’ll say yes, and that’s fine. Patrick’s not looking for an out. But if he doesn’t ask his sisters will complain that he doesn’t have to follow the rules, and Patrick’s heard that particular rant enough for it to get really old.

Half an hour later Patrick hears the honk, loud and long, the driver not taking their hand off of the horn for a good twenty seconds. He knows it’s Sharpy driving just from that. He leaves the house with a called out goodbye and plasters on a happy face. If Jonny wants to make this weird that’s Jonny’s choice. Patrick on the other hand is all for pretending that Jonny doesn’t hate him for something he can’t control.

The car’s full already, Sharpy and Jonny in front, Duncs and Seabs in back. Patrick opens the back door on the right side and leans in. “Move over.”

“Screw that. You can have the hump seat.”

Patrick rolls his eyes, but it figures, really. He’s spent half his life in cars with siblings, and no one ever willingly takes the hump seat. “So get out so I can get in.”

“Screw that too. Climb over me.”

“Really?”

“Shut up and get in the car.” Jonny doesn’t sound particularly disgusted. Evidently pretending nice is a mutual decision. 

Still, when you can’t be aggressive, might as well be passive aggressive. Patrick lingers on sideways crabwalking over Duncs, touching him more than is necessary. Jonny stares at him through the rearview mirror the whole time. Sharpy waits for him to do up his seat belt then takes off for the movie theatre. Duncs spends the car ride extolling the virtues of a teen girl hunter possible serial killer, but it’s three to one to one for Arthur, and by the time they’re joining the ticket line Duncs has folded. 

Five transactions later they head as a group to the snack bar. There are so many options it’s kind of ridiculous, but in the end Patrick gets his own personal classic combo; popcorn, a small bag of licorice, and a theatre brand slushie. Red flavoured. It doesn’t really taste like cherry or strawberry or raspberry, it just tastes like red. It’ll be nice to have a slushie. He can’t drink them at school anymore, not now that he’s seen some of the New Directions be all PTSD about them. Seabs and Sharpy pick up the same, not that Seabs really counts with his gross ass habits. He likes to put chocolate in his popcorn, the freak. Today it’s Milk Duds, and Patrick just knows that toffee and chocolate is going to be melted all over the popcorn by the time the trailers start. Duncs gets a chocolate frosty. Patrick kinda hopes he’ll share, because he doesn’t have any more cash. 

Jonny’s the only one without instant satisfaction. He’s trying to get nachos but there’s some sort of cheese problem. The employee is staring at him like he’s three seconds from begging Jonny to order something else, but Jonny doesn’t flinch under the onslaught. Instead he just turns to them. “Go get seats. I’ll see you in a minute.”

There’s a strategy to seat claiming. Luckily they’ve been friends for a while now and they have this down pat. Jonny’s far end because he doesn’t want to be interrupted. Duncs is next because he’s good at quiet too, but doesn’t mind a bit of chatter, and Sharpy’s got the occasional opinion. He and Seabs are on the other end because they talk the whole time, from noticed product placement to what’s that background song to which woman they’d bang to dialogue the characters should be saying. They still make jokes about that time in seventh grade that Jonny gave Seabs a black eye for talking for the entirety of Pirates of the Caribbean 3.

Once everyone is settled everyone digs into something. Patrick uses his teeth to rip open the packet of green licorice but puts the decimated bag on his lap so he can have some of his drink. The intense air conditioning makes him thirsty.

“So you got a boyfriend?” Sharpy asks.

Patrick chokes on his slushie. Seabs takes it out of his hand and puts it on the sticky floor before Patrick can lose control of all his body and dump the red slush on his lap. 

Way too late for it to believeable, he asks “are you asking me or Duncs?”

Sharpy shakes his head with older brother-like condemnation. “We’re just asking because that freshman Shawsy might be bi.”

“I don’t know what the fuck is going on,” Patrick says petulantly, and reaches around Seab’s legs for his drink.

“We’re trying to set you up with Shaw, numbnuts.” Duncs explains.

“If you’re single, that is.” Seabs adds.

“He’s only a freshman, but you could just date him next year then break up at grad so you don’t fall into a long distance nightmare.” Sharpy says it smugly, because he and Abby are going to the same university in the fall, but Faire and his girlfriend aren’t, and Faire’s super pissed about it.

“I still-”

“We haven’t asked him if he’d date you, we’re not some stupid check here note from junior high.”

“But the guy he’s always talking about, Brandon? He doesn’t go to McKinley, so Shaw would totally dump that long distance shit for you on his dick. Who wouldn’t?” Duncs thinks about that for a second then tacks on a “who gay wouldn’t?”

“I’m don’t wanna date Shawsy. I’m not gonna date any guy. Why would you even think I would?” Clearly someone in Glee spilled. It was either Quinn, maliciously, Sam, to fuck up the hockey team, or Brittany because she’s too dumb to know what a secret is.

“Jonny said you were, and he’d make us look like Gordie Howe if we said anything anti-gay. Like we would. I mean I’ve probably said fag a few times, but it’s never been a _gay_ thing, and I’ll cut that shit out.”

“Jonny told you.”

“Yeah, because-”

Patrick shoves his licorice and popcorn at Sharpy and stands. “Excuse me.” 

“Dude, it’s okay.”

“I said move your shit, please and fuckin thanks.” He waits impatiently as Seabs picks up his jumbo popcorn from the floor then starts inching sideways until he hits the aisle and can move freely. None of them follow him, which is probably a good thing.

Jonny’s to the side of the line, still waiting for his nachos. Patrick shoves him towards the bathroom.

“Come on man. They might spit on them if I don’t watch.”

“Fuckin’ deal with it. We need to talk.”

Patrick scans the bathroom as they enter. It’s empty except for one stall. Grey slacks and loafers show under the door, and those definitely don’t belong to anyone Patrick knows. It’s safe to talk.

Jonny all but taps his foot on the tile floor. “Make it quick or we’ll miss the trailers.”

“All you gotta answer is why the fuck did you out me to the hockey team?”

“Not all of them, just your friends.”

Patrick doesn’t see how that helps. “Outing is outing, douchbag.”

“All of them use fag as a diss when someone’s not doing their job on the ice. I should have stopped it before, but I didn’t. I’m stopping it now.”

“If it bothered you that much you could have just said stop. You didn’t have to drag me into the mud.”

“I don’t think it’s dragging into the mud. It’s not wrong to be gay.”

Patrick crosses his arms. That’s a fucking rich statement coming from Jonny. “Oh really? That’s interesting, seeing as you started to skip Glee after half the guys came out.”

“I only missed one practice, and that wasn’t the reason.”

“Well if you’re not scared of fag cooties, actually show up tomorrow.”

“Can you not say that?” Jonny says, exasperated.

“First you don’t want Seabs to say it, then you don’t want _me_ to say it. Who can?” Patrick’s pretty sure there’s some kind of social rule that says minorities can use their own demographic’s slurs.

“No one!” 

Patrick’s about to blast off when the door opens, accompanied by the sickly creak of an automatic door being pushed too fast. Lima’s small, the chance of someone else from McKinley watching a movie on a random weekday is high. It would be stupid of him to say anything before he sees who it is.

“Sharpy, what are you-”

“I’d say I’ve gotta piss, but what’s the point in lying? Wanted to make sure you weren’t kicking each other’s asses.”

“He’d deserve it, but no.” Patrick answers.

“If he sucks that much slam him into the boards tomorrow.”

“We’re doing Glee tomorrow, actually.”

Patrick can’t help but smirk. Now that Jonny’s said it, he has to show up. He’s committed. Sharpy will razz him if he doesn’t.

“So slam him into the boards the day after tomorrow. Now lets go watch commercials of what we’re spending money watching in the next few months.”

Patrick could say no, tell Sharpy to go away, he wants to finish this. Or he could shout at Jonny in front of Sharpy. It’s not like Sharpy doesn’t know. That’s the whole fucking problem. But what the fuck is the point? Jonny’s a hypocrite, getting chair throwing mad at Patrick for coming out and then telling everyone that didn’t already know. Punching him in the face isn’t gonna change things. It won’t even make him feel better. He’ll just feel all guilty and shit, because whether or not Jonny’s an asshat, Patrick still likes him. 

“In case we didn’t make it clear enough,” Duncs says from beyond Sharpy once they resettle in the theatre, quickly enough that the dumb trivia games are still playing, “we don’t care who you have sex with. Girl, boy, someone andro, whatever.”

“Only that it’s someone?” Patrick has to ask.

“We’re men. We’re hockey players. To not have sex is just wrong.”

***

Twelve hours later Patrick has to admit Duncs has a point. It’s just past four in the morning and he’s just finished getting sucked and fucked at the same time. Bobby Hull would be impressed with his laying skills.

“So that was great. Go away so I can sleep.” Patrick’s maybe not the most hospitable, but eight in the morning comes early. It’s not like he can offer to let Finn and Puck sleep here. It takes creativity to fit all three of them on the twin bed for sex, more often they do it on the floor or against the wall. If they can barely make it when they’re overlapping, it’s not going to happen side by side by side. 

They don’t seem to be in a huge hurry to leave. Finn’s at least put his boxers and t-shirt back on, though his socks and jeans are still by the door. Puck’s completely naked, crosslegged. 

“You gonna sing tomorrow?”

“What, about sex?” Patrick scoffs.

“Or love, whatever.”

“Nah. Jonny said he’s gonna show. If I make too much of an ass of myself singing My Humps or something, he’ll get all pissy again.”

“Let him get pissy. He’s an asshole,” Puck growls.

Finn raises his eyebrows. “So are you, and I still want you happy when you’re around me.”

“Fine, whatever. Don’t have fun singing an obnoxious sex song. Your choice dude.”

“No, wait. You should sing a song for Jonny.”

“I don’t really see the point. He thinks the three of us are together. I mean, we’re together-”

“Was it the dick in your ass that tipped you off?” Puck smirks.

“But we’re not _together_ ,” Patrick finishes. “Any kind of relationship song will imply we are.”

“Maybe. But if we hadn’t accidentally said we’re more than friendly pity-fucking you, he still wouldn’t think your future song is about him. He totally missed it that first time.”

“You’d be singing for you,” Finn says. “Sometimes that’s important.” Puck nods his agreement. 

Patrick tries again. “I don’t even know any love songs, practically. My sisters have made me watch Grease, but I think I’d rather hang myself than sing Hopelessly Devoted To You.”

“Song selection is crap argument. So since you won’t hurt our tender feelings talking about the other man, tell me, what do you think when you think Jonny?”

“Not hockey,” Finn adds. “Not Jonny plus hobbies, but Jonny plus feelings.”

“This is a weird conversation. Do you want me to just suck you hard again?”

“Look, I know where he’s going with this. It’s a good place. Jonny plus feelings- three, two, one, go!”

Fuck. Somehow Finn and Puck are more interested in talking about Patrick’s unrequited crush than more orgasms, and they probably won’t leave until he talks. Fine, whatever. He just has to say this stupid crap once, and then it’ll be done. And then he can _nap_ , as is his right as an American citizen.

“I know it doesn’t sound great, but sometimes it feels like my heart is falling out of my chest into my abdomen. Like this catastrophic thing is happening with my body, but no one’s ever going to see it. So I just gotta keep on being normal me, because no one will get it if I don’t.”

“Okay, I can work with that.”

“What?”

Puck gets off Patrick’s bed, moving the few short feet to the dresser. Patrick’s laptop is a falling apart hand-me-down, only stolen bumper stickers holding part of the casing together. Puck handles it carefully as he checks the space then sits on the bare space. “I always find Glee songs like this. Google the word ‘lyrics’, plus something you want to say, and you can almost always find something to sing. Gross, I’m not even gonna ask why your trackpad is sticky. See, like this. This should be perfect. Come see.”

***

Ms Holliday, Santana and Brittany are singing a song together. It’s probably beautiful, Patrick’s just not really listening to confirm. As soon as they’re done he’s got to raise his hand. That’s a little scary. Not because of Jonny’s reaction, Patrick’s fully confident Jonny will assume he’s singing about Finn and Puck, and equally confident that Jonny will be on his best behaviour about the gay thing, since Sharpy is apparently primed to call him out. It’s unsettling because it will only be his third solo song since he joined Glee. Patrick’s not used to not being part of a team. He doesn’t have a choice though. The song will lose it’s meaning if he has backup.

Santana gets off her stool when they’re done, and drifts over to Brittany. They start to whisper to each other, then hug, as everyone watches. It’s a private moment being eagerly watched by the rest of the room, but Rachel’s the one to really kill it, saying something about ‘sapphic charm’. Even Mr Schue rolls his eyes.

“Who’s up next?”

“Um. I’ve got a song?” Patrick says. It comes out more like a question, but when Schue nods his head he doesn’t hesitate walking to the centre of the room, so that has to count for something.

“Hey Na Na, there's a ghost under the table  
Hey Na Na, I swear I heard him say your name aloud  
Hey Na Na, where'd you find those little cracks at  
Hey Na Na, bet you thought you could get past by now  
Hey Na Na Na Na Na

Don't let your heart fall out  
It's the only thing you got  
Don't let your face fall down  
Fall down, down  
Don't lose that only you sound  
That nobody has got  
Through the losses and founds  
And the turn arounds  
Don't let your heart fall out  
Fall out, out  
Don't let your heart fall out  
Fall out, out, out, out

Hey Na Na, I can see you from the backseat  
Hey Na Na, don't you think you can get it past me now  
Hey Na Na, I can hear it when you're speaking  
Hey Na Na, Why do you cry when you are sleeping now  
Hey Na Na Na Na Na”

Patrick sings through the chorus again. He’d planned while memorising the lyrics to be doing one of his awful jigs by now, to raise the mood of the room, but he’s just standing with his fists clenched, spine arched and arms a little back, like he’s a gymnast sticking a landing.

“If you call it, call it love  
You call it love, love  
You call it love, love  
Love, call it, call it love”

The last third of the song is the chorus twice more. It starts twisting away from the original version, becoming more of a tribal chant. It’s all Patrick can to do not start stamping his feet. _don’t let your **heart **fall **out** , it’s the **only** thing you’ve **got******_ , it just has this power, like the song is body checking it’s way out through his throat.

And then he’s done. The song’s done, there’s nothing left, the clock has run out. It’s weird how his adrenaline is spiked like he was playing a game. He’s not breathing heavy, he’s not sweating, but he feels like he should be. He gets how a person like Rachel could get addicted to this.

Patrick threads his fingers through his hair and accepts the applause that comes next. No one’s giving him a winning in overtime cheer, but it’s not bullshit golf applause either. The only person that’s reacting negatively is Jonny, who has stood up and moved to the door. At least this time he skirted the side of the room, rather than making a scene in the middle of it.

Not that that’s stopped the rest of Glee from noticing. Santana crosses her arms and looks across the room pointedly. “This is your second walkout in two practices. It’s getting boring.”

Jonny doesn’t reply, just stands in the doorway looking at Patrick until he breaks and follows Jonny out. Once he’s in the otherwise empty hall Jonny closes the door. Patrick braces himself to get hit by a second wave of gay panic. So what if Jonny said he didn’t care yesterday? He obviously cared enough to blab to Duncs and Seabs. The chances of being physically hit are low, if only because Jonny knows he’ll hit back, but there’s no telling what kind of _never talk about your sex life in front of me_ statement might come next.

“That was about me, wasn’t it?”

Fuck. Fuck and shit and damn. This is not what was supposed to happen. He was supposed to be safe as Jonny assumed he was singing about Finn. Patrick pinches his eyebrows together and wonders where the fuck he’s supposed to go from here. If Jonny thinks he’s been secretly macking on him for years, well, he’s not all that wrong. It’s more a matter of if it’s actually inappropriate or shitty if he’s totally aware that nothing’s ever gonna happen.

“Tell the truth Kaner,” Jonny demands.

“Yes and no. The ‘you’s were all self-referencing. I can obviously hear my feelings in my voice, not yours. But are the feelings for you? Yeah.”

Jonny hesitates, then throws him a bone. “You’re not the only gay hockey player.”

“Yeah I know. Giroux and Briere. I promise I’ll be way less obvious.”

“I meant on _our_ team.”

“Yeah, Sharpy thinks that freshie Shaw is dating some other guy Brandon.”

“I meant me.”

“What?” That doesn’t make any sense.

“You’re not the only one who knows how to stay under the radar. Or should I say I’m the only one who knows how to stay under the radar. Because Jesus, Kaner, you suck at secret keeping, telling the whole room like it was no big thing.”

Patrick holds back from shoving Jonny against the opposite wall. Instead he asks the obvious question. “Why didn’t you say anything on Monday?”

“What, because Finn got caught in a lie and everyone tumbled from there like the reason for keeping it a secret no longer applied?”

“Okay, fine, I get it. Then why are you even telling me? If other people’s lives don’t have anything to do with your future why bother?”

“Your song was about me. I make you look at me in the rear view mirror. I like the way that sounds.”

“What are you saying?” Patrick knows what he thinks he hears, but he could be reading way too much into the situation. He could be having some sort of auditory hallucination right now, and he’s just got to listen hard until things become clear again.

“I’m saying, before we get recruited to the Penguins and the Flyers and then have to beat each other to death on ice, lets be together.”

“So, to clarify, dating until the point that it no longer fits with our careers?”

“Yes?”

Patrick opens the door and sticks his head back in the choir room. Everyone’s applauding Quinn and Sam, who apparently did a duet, but Patrick cuts through the noise with his shout. “Finn, Puck, we’re ending our sex thing. I’ve got another offer on the table.”

There’s an assortment of thumbs up and cheers before he closes the door again, Finn and Puck among them.

Jonny’s arms are crossed over his jersey and he’s got the typical _you’re a moron why do I put up with you_ friendly sneer on his face. “That was really not subtle, Kaner.”

“You told the Cutters, not any of them. And none of them have spilled about Finn and Puck. I think we’ll be alright. So we’re really doing this?” 

“What? Secret hockey boyfriends? Yes.” 

Patrick grins widely then scales back. “The question is if my secret boyfriend puts out.” If Jonny doesn’t want to fuck Patrick won’t pressure him, and it’s not like he’s gonna go running back to Puck and Finn. Not when he’s waited years for this impossible thing. Not even waited, really, because he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that it would never happen. It would take a ridiculous amount to make Patrick back out now. The sex -or not- is just something he’s gotta know.

“Are you retarded?” Jonny asks. “I’ve wanted to fuck a guy since I first started jerking off. Fucking girls is always weird.”

“So you’ve...”

“Yeah? So have you.”

“Nope. Gold star gay. No girls.”

“There were definitely girls.”

Well that’s good, at least, that his acting straight has seemed believable. But Patrick _is_ gold star gay, and wants Jonny to know it. “No. Never. Made out in front of other people, got mysteriously texted by a friend as soon as we were alone.”

“Clever. No mysterious texts with me though.”

“I think I’ll be too busy with your dick in my mouth to check my phone.”

Jonny’s face wavers between _you’re so stupid and your one liners suck_ and _you’re so hot and lets bang all night_ and Patrick just can’t resist. He opens the door again and says “have a good day, we’re going home to fuck.”

Patrick hears about three words of Schue’s ‘inappropriate’ speech before Jonny is pulling him out of the frame and slamming the door. Jonny punches him in the arm, not as hard as he’s capable of, but still with a decent heft to it. “Stop that.”

“I’m just really excited about your dick in my mouth.”

“I’ll put my dick in your ass if you stop bragging.”

“Done deal,” Patrick blurts instantly. “Done fuckin’ deal.”

“Great. So lets stop talking to them and get in my car.”

Patrick would willingly be mute for a year if that’s what it took. Which apparently it might, because the first thing Jonny says when he takes Patrick to his room is “my brother’s home so you need to not make a scene.”

“Not a problem. I tend to have sex after midnight when I’m surrounded by five light sleepers.” Patrick’s actually awesome at not having sex that attracts other people’s attention.

Jonny winces then looks away from Patrick. The only thing in that direction is Jonny’s ugly navy and gold wallpaper. He’s still staring at the wall when he says “don’t tell me what they did. Lets do our own thing.”

Well shit. That’s something they don’t say in sex ed; that you should never talk about old sex buddies in front of new ones. But Patrick can fix this, he knows he can. Once they have sex, it’ll be _their_ sex, and they can draw from that, not from past experiences. He just has to get them to that space.

“For starters then, do you have lube? Or vaseline?”

Jonny’s head comes back to him, eyebrows up with a slight frown. “You can’t use vaseline with a condom.”

“I know. But I’ve only with Finn and Puck, and we’ve always used condoms, so if you and your girls did we don’t have to.” Patrick’s sure Jonny had. There’s no way Jonny would have risked parenthood, not with his ambition.

“I want to have with a condom.”

“Okay? Patrick tries not to take it personally and fails. “But I swear I-”

“Look. It’s not like I don’t believe that you have a meticulous record of the circumstances of your orgasms. Every guy counts conquests. If you said you were safe I believe you. I still want to use a condom. For now, at least.”

“Okay. Sure. You have one on you? Because I don’t.” Puck always brought some with him, late night. Not that Patrick can say that.

“My parents keep condoms in the bathroom cupboard, in case me or Dave needs them.”

“Wow. That’s really...my parents wouldn’t do that.”

Jonny ducks out of the room and comes back with the square packet. He holds it by one corner and flaps it back and forth, then says suggestively “I use lube to jerk off with. It’s under the bed.” 

Sure enough, the bottle Patrick bends over and fishes out from behind the bedskirt is only half full. By the time he’s upright Jonny’s on the bed, thigh to thigh with him again, although this time he’s staring at Patrick’s shoulder, not the wallpaper. Patrick gives him half points for effort.

“You sure you want me to fuck you?”

“Yes.” He should really be asking Jonny to make out with him first, but he’s pretty fucking positive he’ll feel intimate and desired when Jonny’s inside him. “Yeah, you totally should. Right now. How about you get your condom on and I’ll get myself ready?”

“Or we could do it the other way around?” 

Jonny looks so hopeful that Patrick has to pat him on the thigh. “I’m bad at condoms. More importantly, because of reasons I don’t need much prep, but I know you, you’ll be all methodical and shit. I like wild and crazy, methodical is a turn off. So you do you and I’ll do me and we’ll meet in the middle.”

Patrick figures the plan is a go when Jonny stands and starts getting undressed. He does the same. Maybe he’s a little difficult about it, taking off his jeans and boxers by flopping back onto the bed and wriggling from left to right and back. So what? Jonny’s sheets smell like him, mint soap and sweat. They smell fantastic. If Patrick was a dog he’s totally be circling the bed and claiming a large patch as his own. Rolling around a bit is practically being mature.

“Some day I’ll finger you.”

Patrick smiles up at him, mock-pretty. “I’m sure if you refuse sex for a few weeks by the time you start up I’ll be willing for you to toe fuck me if that’s what it takes.”

“Jesus, Kaner. That’s such a bad mental image.”

“Well if your boner can hold out for like three fucking seconds you get to fuck me.”

“I’ll be fine if you hurry up like you claimed!” Jonny snaps. It’s almost his Captain Tazer voice, but not quite. Maybe it’s his sex voice. Maybe it’s his Sir Jonny voice. Patrick didn’t think that was a kink of his, but the very idea of it has him reaching between his legs.

It’s an easy thing to loosen up. Patrick’s learned that his asshole is a muscle to be worked like any other, the only difference being that having control of his asshole can lead to orgasms while having control of his hamstrings generally can’t. Meanwhile Jonny occupies himself getting the condom on, then stroking up and down the translucent blue latex. Patrick can’t help but feel a little smug, a little giddy that Jonny likes what he sees.

It’s not really surprising that Jonny asks are you sure when Patrick declares himself open season. Patrick feels exasperated anyway. “Yes. Do you wanna fuck me like this or do I have to climb on your dick?” He would. He hasn’t really tried cowboy before but if that’s how this would happen he would.

“Shit, Kaner,” Jonny answers, briefly closing his eyes before returning to the prize. Then he lets his dick stand free as both his hands scoop up the underside of Patrick’s thighs and push upward. Patrick accepts the movement because how could he not when Jonny’s like this, and it ends up with his knees on his chest. His legs are in the way so he can’t really see anymore, but it doesn’t take much thought to place the sudden pressure on his asshole.

“Come on, fuck me,” Patrick whispers. Jonny blinks at him and Patrick grins. Yeah, he can totally whisper dirty talk. Not wanting to shock siblings doesn’t mean he can’t say what’s on his mind. He could probably even do it in a normal voice, considering all he can hear from the rest of the house is the gunfire of Halo.

Thank God Jonny doesn’t stay stunned too long. He relocates a hand from Patrick’s thigh to his asscheek and uses it to guide himself in. It’s pretty easy going, his body is used to this now. Jonny’s not. He stops halfway in, biting his lip.

“You can come quick, that’s fine. All that I ask is that you get hard a second time to finish the job.” It’s not a difficult request, he and Finn and Puck could all do it.

“I’m not- I’m giving you time you adjust.”

“Well don’t. I know you don’t want to talk about the past but I’ve got this.” 

It seems like even that’s enough to make Jonny possessive because he gets this incendiary look and bucks forward until he’s in to the hilt. But then he stops again, like he’s been watching some kind of stupid ‘how to respect your partner’ porn instead of the fun stuff.

“Fuck the fuck out of me already,” Patrick says.

“Stop whining,” Jonny commands, and fuck, there’s that Sir Jonny tone again.

“Fucking please,” Patrick groans. It’s not whining if it’s goddamn manners.

“You’re so fucking hot,” Jonny replies as he finally, _finally_ starts thrusting. He doesn’t quite have the angle right, but Patrick doesn’t care. He’s got Jonny inside him, that’s hot enough without a bullseye on his prostate. The nail bitten fingertips all over him are pretty excellent too. “You should have come to me. When you realised you were-”

“Oh, that would have worked. It’s not like you threw a chair when I came out.”

“At stupid slutty Puckerman for sticking his stupid slutty dick where it doesn’t belong. Not at you.”

This possessive thing is kinda hot. Kinda Edward Cullen’y. Patrick makes the executive decision to poke at it and see if it works for him. “So show me who does belong in my ass then.”

Jonny doesn’t reply, just settles his roaming hands. Patrick wiggles his hips as Jonny picks up the pace, and between the two of them they manage to align the planets and the stars and get direct prostate action. “Oh fuck.”

“Yeah?” 

“You. You you you you.”

Jonny looks confused for a second, and then impossibly smug when he gets it. Patrick would call him out on his ego, except his brain is sort of melting. One syllable on repeat is really the best he’s gonna do right now.

Patrick does his best to clench down on Jonny as he comes all over his own stomach. He in no way thinks that simultaneous orgasms mean true love. That’s dumb girly crap. Patrick’s just not sure if he can convince Jonny to keep boning him when he’s obviously done his half. Better to make it happen now. The added pressure works. Jonny shudders, makes a spectacularly stupid face and comes only a few seconds after him. Patrick’s gonna rip on him about that forever - as soon as he can catch his breath.

Jonny beats him to the insults though. “That didn’t last as long as I thought it would.”

“What, like porn?” Patrick snorts. “Viagra. It’s sex’s steriods, gives them an unfair advantage. What we did was real man sex.”

“Real man?”

“Don’t tell me you’re gonna be a giant douche who says because I bottomed I’m not a real man.”

Jonny shakes his head. “I wanna try that side too. Just being a man means taking care of yourself. We live with our parents. My brother’s down the hall. Fuck! My brother’s down the hall! That got way louder than I meant it to be. Do you think he heard?” 

“Over Halo on max volume? No. But if you’re worried you should go see now, rather than obsess about it all night.”

Jonny scratches his buzzed hair. “Yeah. Yeah, biting the bullet’s better.”

Following Jonny’s lead Patrick gets dressed and walks down the hall, trying to ignore how the drying lube is making his ass cheeks sticky. David doesn’t look up from the tv when Jonny opens the door and the gunfire gets impossibly louder. Jonny doesn’t say anything, frozen in an ugly future where his family shuns him for being gay. Like that would happen, considering they’re liberal enough to provide fourteen and seventeen year olds condoms. Patrick’s pretty sure as Catholic his parents aren’t even supposed to _use_ condoms, never mind promote premarital sex. Patrick doesn’t say anything either, not sure how Jonny wants to handle this.

It’s almost a full minute before David asks what they want, fingers still working the controller. Jonny asks “you hear anything weird?”

“No? It’s probably the neighbour’s dog having a seizure again. I don’t care. Now go away. This game is kicking my ass and you’re distracting.”

“Fine. Whatever.” If David was looking up he’d see situationally disproportionate relief all over his brother’s face, but his eyes are glued on the mostly grey graphics. Jonny’s uncharacteristic display of emotions is safe.

“See you later fucknut,” Patrick chimes in. Jonny wouldn’t say something like that to any of his sisters. Patrick wouldn’t let it stand if he tried. But David doesn’t care and neither does Jonny, because brothers aren’t sisters.

Back in Jonny’s room Patrick says “now would be the time if we were an ordinary couple to say if you just told your family you wouldn’t have to worry about being caught.”

“Ordinary boyfriend would point out that if our parents know they wouldn’t let us close the door or have any alone time,” Jonny jokes back.

“But we’re gonna be franchise super stars.”

“Exactly.”

Patrick leans over and puts his head on Jonny’s shoulder. Except for that moronic temporary lapse in Glee practice, he gets it. Every person that knows is another person that could jeopardize them, and fifteen people already know about him. Patrick’s third cousins don’t need to be informed at the fourth of July barbeque. There’s no reason to tell anyone.

***

Schue faces the rows of chairs with an expression that Patrick can tell means something shitty’s happened. If he was a lesser person he’d clamp his hands over his ears when Schue opens his mouth. He doesn’t though. Jonny would probably punch him in the neck.

“Guys, I’ve got some bad news. You know how we decided on SING by My Chemical Romance for Regionals? Well, I hold in my hand a cease and desist letter from the band. We can’t do it.”

Puck snarls. “It was the perfect anthem!”

“How much do you wanna bet that Coach Sylvester had something to do with this?” Mercedes asks.

“One step ahead of you. She contacted the band, told them we were animal torturers. I guess that didn’t sit too well.”

“So what are we going to do now?” Mercedes asks.

“I think we should write original songs for Regionals!” Rachel insists. She’s met with complete silence for a long five seconds, then Santana speaks.

“All those in favour of voting Rachel down a second time?”

Three quarters of the room’s hands go up, only Puck, Finn, Tina, and Jonny abstaining. And even Jonny’s not okay with Rachel’s idea. “I know you want to be a songwriter, but have you even checked the rule book to see if that’s allowed? We’re a show choir, I’m pretty sure that means singing other people’s songs.”

“Can I see it? The notice?” Patrick asks.

“I don’t see why not.” 

Patrick half stands, leaning forward, and Schue hands him the folded paper. After a minute of reading it Patrick crumples it up into a ball. “That’s not a cease and desist letter.”

“Throwing it away doesn’t make it go away.” Quinn says archly.

“Not if it was. But it isn’t.”

Mike raises his eyebrows. “How would you know?”

“My sister tried to write vampire fanfiction. Turns out Ann Rice is a real bitch.” The less said about that complete disaster the better.

“So then what? I don’t get it.” Sam complains.

“Sylvester gave it to Schue, right? She was pulling a John Tortorella.”

“What?”

Jonny sighs impatiently, like everyone should get the reference. In his mind they probably should. “She was being a dirty coach.”

“So the bottom line is we can do My Chem,” Lauren says. She doesn’t seem particularly enthusiastic, but then she really never is. Unless it’s about greco-roman wrestling, audio-visual stuff, or off-season or imported snacks, that is.

Schue takes a second to switch gears, then he’s storming to the white board. He writes SING on it in green marker, underlines it, then turns back to them. “So if we can sing SING, what else fits around it, thematically? Anyone have any ideas?”

Tin raises her hand. “It’s not a great song for choreography, but what about the Dresden Dolls’ Sing?”

Mike shrugs. “I’m sure I could figure out something. Maybe a waltz?”

“Does anyone else know this song?” At everyone’s silence Schue continues. “Tina, could you sing some of it as a sample?”

Tina stands up and picks her way through the bags and chairs and feet on the steps until she’s in the middle of the room. She slides slightly nervous hands down her black lace skirt. It’s a pointless gesture, the full petticoat underneath prevents the fabric from moving at all, but it seems to calm her enough to let her open her mouth.

“There is this thing that's like touching except you don't touch  
Back in the day it just went without saying at all  
All the world's history gradually dying of shock  
There is thing that's like talking except you don't talk  
You sing...”

Four minutes later everyone is applauding. Then Tina makes her way back to her seat beside Mike and it’s a cue for everyone to start laying out their full opinions.

“I like it.”

“We’re not gonna be able to say motherfuckers on stage though.”

“I’m sure we can think of a better word.”

“What was the band again?”

“It does totally match with My Chem.”

“It would be another group number,” Rachel says.

Patrick wants to laugh. Because it’s so selfish of her, so obnoxiously selfish to complain that they’ll win or lose as a group when she just wants a solo, would be content to sing all three of their songs and leave nothing for the rest of them. But it’s also just her, the way her dads taught her that if she was the star in her own mind it wouldn’t matter how other people tore her down, no doubt culled from their own hard lessons as queer in the eighties-nineties-aughts. They’re friends in this room, regardless of character flaws, and they’ve booed her down once today already, and when you’re friends you can do that once or twice, but not again and again. So he doesn’t laugh, and he’s not even surprised when Tina shakes her head.

“Not necessarily. The second and fourth verse, the ones about who to sing to? Those could be split as mini solos, like people getting two lines each. And then the last verse, one person could sing the actual lyrics as everyone else does the ‘ahh ahh ahh’s. It was hard to make them sound as powerful as they do in the actual song, the song’s been mastered so that it’s a few layers of her at once. But a group backing you or Santana or Mercedes? It would work.”

When Schue writes Sing a second time on the whiteboard, under the first, Patrick knows that they’re going to make this work. He can trust in this thing, this thing that started as a dumb diversion but is now almost as big and real and important as hockey. This team has each other’s backs, and this team has skill, and determination.

***

This is not the kind of uniform Patrick’s used to fighting in. Usually he’s got pads and mouthguards and a helmet, enough to give him the illusion that nobody can mess with him. Instead he’s in black dress slacks and a black dress shirt with his sleeves rolled up. He looks sharp, yeah. Professional, like his idols do giving post game interviews. But there’s no comfort to it.

At least it’s pants though. All the girls are in knee length satin dresses. No doubt most of them are used to it, but Lauren looks so uncomfortable she could pile-drive someone.

Mr Schue herds them into the already full auditorium as the first team is about to go on. They’re called Aural Intensity, and Patrick has about ten thousand sex jokes running through his brain the instant the announcer introduces them. No one else is trying to hold back a snicker. Not even Puck. It makes Patrick wish Sharpy was here, even though Sharpy’s a terrible singer. Sharpy would laugh with him.

Thirty seconds into the first song Patrick decides his professional opinion about the enemy is that they’re fucking obnoxious. They’ve rigged their set list to make the judges happy. One of the judges is a nun, another is a fundie Tea Partyier, and Aural Intensity’s song is ‘Jesus is a friend of mine’. If Patrick could get a cat call started without risking getting kicked out he would. Something like _suck up_ or _ass lick_ seems fitting. But if no one joins in it won’t be the simple petering out that happens at a football or hockey game. Instead he’ll get singled out and there will probably be consequences.

The second team is the Warblers. It takes half of New Directions sitting up straighter in their seats for Patrick to remember the Warblers are the team Finn’s brother and the other guy from the party are in. Their first song is good. Kurt and what’s-his-face do all the singing, practically, the others just stand and harmonise nonsense syllables. It doesn’t really hit Patrick emotionally in any way, but he’s the only one. Puck’s sniffling for godsake.

After the Warblers are done Schue leads them to their dressing room. There are probably motivational speeches going on, but Patrick’s doing what he has to do to be his best; listening to his playlist. He brought his iPod with him for the bus ride. He ended up not really using it then, a discussion between Mike and Finn about best roller coaster rides had caught his attention for most of the trip, but now is the time to psyche himself up. Patrick focuses on the win behind every word and zones out. Even when Sam comes over to reroll the shirt sleeve that’s apparently not good enough Patrick only sticks out his arm absently and lets him, attention still on mouthing Kanye’s words.

All too soon though Jonny’s hand is on his back. It’s a totally chaste action. It’s totally Captain Tazer with his own routines of how we’re going to win this thing. He doesn’t touch every Cutter before a game, but a select few deserve it. 

Standing in the wings waiting for his cue to walk out with Sam, the stage seems absurdly big. Starting Thursday they’d rehearsed on the April Rhodes stage instead of in the choir room. It had been long enough to feel the differences in the floor and how the music travelled between normal classroom and actual auditorium, and how to compensate for those differences. But this stage seems even bigger. Not to mention there are hundreds of people in the audience. But when the music starts lowly Patrick puts his _I will fuck up your shit_ expression on -in this case an audience friendly smile instead of a right wing threatening scowl- and bounds on stage. Hockey and the arts are the same in this way; being a second late off the bench is a poor idea.

Mike’s first impulse ended up being what they choreographed. As they begin to sing Dresden Dolls’ Sing they start to waltz. They decided to not assign gender to the leading and following, pairing instead by skill level. With Santana’s hands guiding him it feels like Patrick has no choice but to do his steps correctly.

The circle breaks for the second verse into a rough square of dancing couples, people moving elegantly out of each other’s way to allow the current duo to move to the front to do their mini-solo. Artie and Brittany go first, singing together “Sing for the bartender sing for the janitor sing, Sing for the cameras sing for the animals sing” as everyone else stays quiet, only dancing. Then it’s Finn and Mercedes with “Sing for the children shooting the children sing, Sing for the teachers who told you that you couldn't sing.”

The third verse is back to a stage wide circle. The fourth is back to a square, this time with Tina and Quinn, then Puck and Lauren doing their two lines.

The fifth verse is the most powerful, in Patrick’s opinion. Rachel takes centre stage, leaving Mike to waltz by himself in their circle, and does her lines

“Life is no cabaret  
We don't care what you say  
We're inviting you anyway  
You motherfuckers you'll sing someday  
You motherfuckers you'll sing someday  
You motherfuckers you'll sing someday”

as the rest of them croon ahh ahh ahh. They sound so powerful, so determined yet sorrowful that Patrick almost feels like he’s a ghost with a tragic end or something.

No doubt Mr Schue is off stage, horrified. He made them brainstorm a list of things they could say instead of motherfucker, and they’d voted on one, then as soon as he was out of earshot they made Rachel promise to use the original words. Maybe it’s a mistake with a fundie and a nun in the audience, but Patrick can’t bring himself to feel regret. No other word would have fit half as well.

The hardest part of the dancing is at the end, once the lyrics are done, but the music goes on a few more beats. With the first drum crush Patrick puts his hands on Santana’s hips and throws her up into the air. With the second he leans her just caught body backwards. With the third everyone’s standing, frozen. The three couples he was worried about, Quinn throwing Tina, Puck throwing Lauren, and Sam throwing Jonny, all succeed. Quinn’s got tossing skill from Cheerios, Puck’s got enough upper body strength to get Lauren in the air, and Jonny doesn’t instinctively elbow Sam off him like he did more than once in practice.

There’s a moment or two of silence that they use to divide to either set of wings, and then the opening bars of My Chem’s SING starts. Rachel and Finn handle the first verse, and then six people flood them from either side of the stage and it becomes a group song. It’s a little cleaner than it was during their anthem week; then by the second chorus they were just jumping up and down as a group, arms thrown around each other’s shoulders. It’s not _much_ cleaner though. Mike and Brittany and Schue thought the point of the song should be movement, not clarity, so it’s a lot of stuff like running in a circle, and cartwheels, and arm pumping. At one point Brittany and Mike leapfrog over the six other members of their gender and meet in the middle.

Their last song was Jonny’s idea. It’s a stripped down, acoustic version of Sing Along Forever by the Bouncing Souls. It sounds a lot different when it’s sung instead of shouted, less like you’re meant to punch someone in the kidneys while listening to it. It’s still passionate though, Patrick’s heart is still beating hard when it’s done, barely two minutes after they started.

To the sound of a lot of applause they clear the stage. It’s back to their dressing room, the other teams in their own with their doors shut. It’s as nerve wracking as it was before, waiting for the verdict as compared to waiting for the chance to play. Worse even, a little, because he doesn’t have this experience in his repertoire. You either score a goal or you don’t, the ref doesn’t take fifteen minutes to discuss whether or not your earned a goal because your deke was just that good. The best he can do to control himself is to analyse the game. The Warblers second and third song weren’t much different, still all Kurt’s crush leading as everyone else basically hummed. Their first was the best, if only because Kurt’s high voice and what’s-his-face’s low one synchronized well. As for Aural Intensity, the best Patrick can hope for is that the judges feel manipulated. That they recognised they were being played, and didn’t like it.

The New Directions on the other hand... They spread out their solos, only leaning slightly towards Rachel. Everyone had a voice in every song, except maybe Mike, who wouldn’t have wanted a voice. And their subject matter was meaningful, relevant since all three songs were about the importance of music. But it wasn’t blatant, obvious pandering.

Patrick wants to believe they’ll win. He wants to believe it in the dressing room, with his friends pacing around him. He wants to believe it when a bell rings in the room and they join the other teams walking back down the hall and up onto the stage. He wants to believe it when they cluster into a small group across the three step risers so every performer in the building can fit on the stage at once. God, he just _wants_.

The host is a drunk. She sways on her stiletto heels as she walks to the middle of the stage, and the first thing she says into her microphone is “my husband is verbally abusive and I have been drinking since noon.” Patrick can’t help his grimace, and if he was any less strung out on anticipation he probably really wouldn’t appreciate the elbow in the ribs he gets from Jonny. Like now is the time to make a point about alcoholism.

“I’m bored. Lets just see who won, huh?” Patrick can’t tell exactly, her back is to them all, but she looks to be pulling a card out of an envelope. Patrick’s staring at her back hard enough that he could practically set the dark purple material on fire. “The New Directions are going to Nationals in New York!”

All around him in every direction are ecstatic friends of his. They’re jumping up and down, they’re hugging, they’re high fiving. Whatever mode their happiness takes it’s fucking intoxicating to be in the radius of it. This is the pure opposite of what it was like his last Cutters game of the season. No matter what happens with the NHL Patrick will keep joining teams for the rest of his life, just to feel like this.

Patrick’s own joy comes with just the slightest edge of violence, because that’s how he’s made. He turns to the two nearest guys -Jonny, of course, and Finn- and leaps onto them, one arm clotheslining each of them. They go down, almost taking Brittany with them.

“This is the best thing ever!” Patrick shouts into Finn’s face. 

“I think you bruised my ass,” Finn replies.

“Your lack of enthusiasm is killing me!” Patrick doesn’t want any downers. Not now. Any second now they’re going to make them play at being good sports. Shaking the losers hands, or however the arts world does it. Until the moment Patrick’s forced to tone it down he absolutely refuses to do so voluntarily.

“You’re half on your boyfriend. Let me go celebrate with mine.”

Which is fair enough. Patrick scrambles off Finn and stands, barely missing stomping on Jonny’s calf along the way. Kurt brushes by him to hug Mercedes, a lone spot of navy blue suit jacket against their black shirts and baby blue dresses. Someone’s screaming “New York” over and over again, he thinks it might be Artie. Patrick joins, because he’s never met a cheer that he hasn’t liked.

This is bar none the best feeling. That’s why it’s not worth it to kiss Jonny the way Tina is kissing Mike right beside them, or like Finn might be with Puck. Doing that now when there are camera flashes in the audience greatly reduces the chances of being able to feel this again later in an arena or at Worlds. And when Jonny grabs his hand and thrusts it into the air for victory arms Patrick knows he feels the same. They really are meant for each other.


End file.
